Fed Chief Pronounces Recession ‘Over,’ Meanwhile Unemployment Soars

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The Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke may have declared the recession is “very likely over” but the jobless recovery portends plenty of pain ahead.

Try telling the hapless and hopeless thousands who are swelling the ranks of the unemployed that the recession is “very likely over.” Try convincing thousands of dispossessed homeowners, who are unceremoniously being tossed out on the street thanks to surging foreclosure rates, that the recession is over.


Let’s call it what it really is. The rest of the country may be in a recession, but the black community is in a depression. And our recession didn’t start in 2008. According to a report by United for a Fair Economy, minorities have lost an estimated $164 to $213 billion in wealth over the past eight years due to subprime loans — and that was before the bottom fell out of the subprime market. Moreover, while the current unemployment figures stand at 9.7 percent nationally, blacks’ jobless rate is a jaw-dropping 15.1 percent, according to data released in August by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Teenagers, a traditional source of cheap labor in the marketplace, are experiencing a whopping 25.5 percent unemployment rate.


America may have a black man in the White House, but she also has a whole lot of black men and women in the poorhouse. We are better than that, America. Or at least we should be. –michele fling

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