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The African American unemployment rate is at or below its pre-recession level in 11 states: Arkansas, California, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and South Carolina. However, a return to pre-recession levels in these states is barely a recovery: in all of these states, black unemployment rates were above 8.0 percent before the recession.
The latest numbers, when put in context, hardly impress
The bargaining power of most American workers is at a historical low point. The best way to restore it is to get the economy back to full employment.
With the Dow Jones industrial average flirting with a record high, the split between American workers and the companies that employ them is widening and could worsen in the next few months as federal budget cuts take hold.
Growing income inequality—approaching now obscene levels—is not simply a ‘moral outrage’. It not only represents a gross violation of historically held American values or reasonable equality for all. It is a condition that has served, and continues to serve, as a major cause of the lack of sustained economic recovery in the US now for five years—as well as a major factor in explaining why the US continues today to drift toward another ‘double dip’ recession.
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