WASHINGTON –“The world has been through the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression. The crisis in turn sparked a deep global recession, from which we are only now beginning to emerge,” Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke recently told the Federal Reserve Bank during an economic symposium in Kansas City.
But as white America possibly begins to see some light at the end of the economic recession tunnel, the Black community is still in the dark and will remain there for at least several more years, warned several experts.
“I don't think the first phase of the recovery will help the Black community. Their situation will continue to deteriorate,” predicts Dr. Roderick Harrison, a fellow with the Joint Center for Economic and Political Studies and senior research scientist at Howard University.
He told The Final Call, “Historically Blacks and Latinos suffered most from job loss and unemployment. Large numbers of discouraged workers aren't even included in the unemployment numbers. Many people have just given up looking. Blacks and Latinos are the last hired and the first fired. I don't expect to see any substantial signs of improvement for two years or more.”
This view is shared by Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research who analyzed Congressional Budget Office Data in the “CBO Projects More Severe Downturn” report.
“The CBO now believes that the impact of the recession will be larger and longer lasting than its previous projections showed in January,” he said. “These latest projections show that the unemployment rate won't return to previous levels until 2014, more than six years after the collapse of the housing bubble threw the nation into recession.”
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Copyright 2009 Special to the NNPA from the Final Call. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
