The economic recovery has yet to make it to urban America — and Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, doesn’t want the government to overlook that fact.
Particularly problematic, is that programs designed to create jobs and put the most disenfranchised Americans back to work, are being slashed to control the budget.
In his recent address to the Chicago Urban League’s 2011 Summit, Morial offered a 12-point jobs plan for the Obama administration.
The 12-point action plan is simply one set of recommendations put forward by the National Urban League’s for inclusion in the 2011 State of Black America report:
1) Restore the Summer Youth Jobs Program
2) Create 100 urban jobs academies
3) Develop a national public-private jobs initiative
4) Boost minority participation in information technology and communications industries
5) Reform, revise and reauthorize the federal Workforce Investment Act
6) Create Green Empowerment Zones
7) Expand small business lending
8) Initiate tax reform
9) Establish and promote multilateral international trade policies
10) Enact the Urban Jobs Act
11) Create an Urban Homesteading Program
12) Fund direct job creation
“This recession is the worst we’ve faced since the Great Depression. It has had a debilitating impact on America’s urban communities and on America’s communities of color,” Morial said.
“I don’t see how anyone can claim the recession is over when 13 million people are out of work,” he said. “Yes, let it be acknowledged that the nation is beginning to grow jobs. And yes, let it be acknowledged that when President Obama took office they handed him a mess on top of a mess, and he doesn’t have an ‘S’ on his chest.”
Morial told supporters that if African Americans and urban communities are to move forward, they must do so in job creation mode.
“We are at a time in American history when every institutional, political and business leader has to be thinking about how we create economic growth and jobs for everyone,” Morial said.
To learn more about the 12-point plan, visit www.thechicagourbanleague.org.
Photo: HBO https://www.blackpast.org/?q=aah/african-american-museums-united-states-and-canada
