CBC Hour

Floor Speech

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Ms. WATERS. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Christensen. I would like to thank you for taking this time this evening so that we could focus on this issue of jobs. It's extremely important.

I would like to thank Steny Hoyer for coming to the floor to recognize the work that we are doing, to increase job opportunities for people in this country.

The Congressional Black Caucus is to be commended because they heard the cry. They felt the pain of so many people out there who have lost their jobs, who do not know how they are going to pay their mortgages, who do not know how they are going to provide for their families.

So despite the fact that the Congressional Black Caucus organized and introduced over 40 bills dealing with this issue, the Congressional Black Caucus decided to do something more, recognizing, yes, that we have a public policy responsibility, that's why the 40 bills. But beyond that what else could we do?

So the Congressional Black Caucus took to the streets and went out into America and hit five cities: Cleveland, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; Atlanta, Miami, and then my city of Los Angeles. And what we saw was mind-boggling. Even though we understood that 16.7 percent is a huge number for people to be unemployed, we did not realize the thousands upon thousands of people who really were hurting out there.

They came. They came by the thousands in every city that we were in. They were young, they were middle-aged, they were the unemployed, they were people who had been looking for jobs for over a year. And it was awfully painful to see all of these young college graduates who happened to be African American, who went to school, graduated, and looked forward to going to their job, who had no jobs. And so we saw it firsthand.

In my own city of Los Angeles where we organized one of these job fairs, there were over 10,000 people who showed up. Luckily, we had a venue, the Crenshaw Christian Center, where they had a dome, a faith dome. They could hold 10,000 people, and people didn't have to stand in line.

In Atlanta people got ill standing in line 3, 4 hours trying to get connected. The employers are to be commended. They came and they listened, they interviewed, they took applications, they assisted people in learning how to get an opportunity with their companies. We would like to thank all of those employers who participated with the Congressional Black Caucus in trying to help connect people with jobs.

We have to continue with this push for jobs. The press has done a relatively good job of shining a light on the devastation that's going on in these African American communities. We support all people getting an opportunity for jobs, but we must target our resources to those communities that are most in need.

We are talking about rural communities where there's unemployment and poverty, and we are talking about these urban areas. We believe that the resources must be targeted, the attention must be paid, not only to the entire population in this country of unemployed, but those areas that are absolutely suffering.

We need to continue to do this. And while the white unemployment rate stayed the same last month, black unemployment increased by 4 percentage points to 16.7 percent. Today in The Wall Street Journal they noted that black teenage unemployment is bordering on 50 percent. Fifty percent.

These figures don't even take into account the discouraged workers, involuntary part-time workers, and underemployed workers. Moreover, let me just tell you about the wealth gap. It is at its largest levels in more than a generation.

The median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly available government data from 2009.

These lop-sided wealth ratios are the largest since the government began publishing such data in 1984 and roughly twice the size of the ratios that had prevailed between these three groups for the two decades prior to the Great Recession that supposedly ended in 2009.

The median wealth of white U.S. households in 2009 was $113,149 compared to $5,677 for blacks and $6,325 for Hispanics.

The percentage of African Americans with no wealth has increased. About 35 percent of black households and 31 percent of Hispanic households had zero or negative net worth in 2009, compared with 15 percent of white households.

So while unemployment and the housing crisis is impacting everyone, it is hitting minority communities the hardest. That is why we must continue to push. I am so pleased that the President presented a huge opportunity to focus on job creation, and so now the devil is in the details.

It must be targeted. The public policies must take into consideration targeting these efforts so that these resources are put where its most needed. The Congress must have hearings and markups for the American JOBS Act. We must work together to ensure that its stimulative investments are protected and strengthened through greater targeting.

Our entire jobs-creation agenda can't simply be the tax cuts alone. We need to focus infrastructure repair in the communities with the bridges, roads and sewer systems that are most in need.

We need to rebuild schools in urban and rural areas that have long been neglected.

We want housing, a national housing trust fund to produce, rehabilitate, preserve, and operate rental housing in areas where our homeless veterans and seniors are concentrated.

We need targeted aid to the unemployed, who are the most likely to spend their money and stimulate the economy. If we do not pursue targeted public policy, I predict that the African American unemployment will hit 20 percent. The American economy will never be stable if we have one segment of our population, particularly a segment as large as the African American population, that faces a systemic jobs crisis.

So, again, my appreciation and my thanks to our chairman, Emanuel Cleaver, and to the entire Congressional Black Caucus for having the courage to step up and make this a priority issue, not only for our caucus but for their Congress and for their country. We cannot sit idly by in silence and watch what is happening as this devastation is continuing in these communities.

Thank you one more time for allowing us to be here this evening.

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