By: Marc Morial
President and CEO
National Urban League
Some very important news about America may have been drowned out in the din of high decibel speeches, celebratory music and balloon drops at the recently concluded national party conventions. While the candidates and the delegates were focused on who is going to be the next president, millions of Americans were wondering who was going to provide them with their next paycheck.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics' August jobs report, released on September 5, revealed a startling loss of 84,000 jobs for the month, putting the unemployment rate at 6.1percent. With 9.4 million Americans currently out of work, the highest number of unemployed since 1992, the African-American unemployment rate is at 10.6 percent, its highest level since 2004. Both presidential candidates are promising change. There is no better place to start than with our economy.
There's no doubt about it, we are in a recession. Unemployment continues to rise, consumer spending continues to fall, the housing market is in real trouble and it's tougher than ever to get a bank loan. The next president must be ready on day-one with both a short-term and a long-range plan of his own to fix our broken economy and put America back to work. During the National Urban League's annual conference this past July, both McCain and Obama endorsed our set of recommendations to close the economic gap between White and Black Americans
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