Progressive leaders warn of lasting damage from jobs crisis: "an unfolding social catastrophe"

[Better Believe It]

Progressive leaders warn of lasting damage from jobs crisis
November 17, 2009

The leaders of six progressive nonprofit groups convened on November 17 to warn that the country’s jobs crisis could cause severe and lasting damage to generations of Americans – particularly people of color and children. They collectively issued an Urgent Call for Action to strengthen the social safety net, extend relief to state and local governments, and adopt other policies to create public and private sector jobs.

“This Great Recession is an unfolding social catastrophe,” said Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change. “If we act quickly a jobs program could put millions of people to work in 2010.”

Bhargava, who spoke at EPI’s Spotlight on the Jobs Crisis, was joined by leaders from the AFL-CIO, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the NAACP, and the National Council of La Raza. All stressed that high nationwide unemployment, which reached 10.2% in October and is much higher for black and Hispanic workers, was a national crisis.

“Make no mistake. This is the civil rights issue of our time,” said Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. “There can be no equal opportunity without economic justice and a stable job that provides a living wage.”

Janet Murguia, president and CEO of National Council of La Raza, and Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, echoed this concern about many minority groups already seeing Depression-level rates of joblessness, but also cautioned against viewing the problems of black and Hispanic communities in isolation.

“Black people in the U.S. are the canaries in the coal mine,” said Jealous. “What we get tends to hit everybody later.”

http://www.epi.org/analysis_and_opinion/entry/progressive_leaders_warn_of_lasting_damage_from_jobs_crisis/

[Sebastian Doyle]

1. Obama needs to stop acting like Clinton and start acting like FDR

And for fucks sake, fire Geithner and $ummer$, and replace them with Robert Reich and someone else NOT affiliated with Goddamn Sucks or the DLC.

[truedelphi]

2. + 1 except let's use Brooksley Born rather than Reich

She has been part of the Wall Street community forever, but her instincts let her warn us of what was happening. And she became a pariah in that community for her refusing to say that the Emperor wore clothes.

Reich is not as knowledgeable, nor are his instincts as finely honed. Plyus she deserves the reward after all she's been through.

[brentspeak]

4. Not Reich

Reich may be saying all the right things when it comes to regulating Wall St., but he definitely said and did all the wrong things concerning trade policy back when he was Sec. of Labor under Clinton.

[moondust]

3. Potentially even worse.

A knee-jerk reaction by impatient voters against incumbents in 2010 and/or 2012 sweeping the monsters that created the mess in the first place back into office to further destroy what's left of it.

Welcome to my nightmare.

[Number23]

5. I'm actually surprising myself by rec'ing this.

Not that I believe in the slightest that you give the first damn about black and Hispanic people, but this article and this event are important.

[Better Believe It]

7. Whatever. At least you read the article and that's what is important.

[msallied]

6. Rubbing elbows daily with a few hundred or more jobless folks every day.

And I can definitely say the situation is dismal and desperate.