The chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) stumbled for words Friday when asked why President Barack Obama isn’t doing more to lift the black community out of exceedingly high unemployment.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) told The Huffington Post that CBC Members expressed “the frustration of our constituents” over high unemployment to Obama during a Thursday meeting at the White House. The Labor Department puts unemployment at 16.1 percent in the black community, but Cleaver said the number is more like 28 percent when factoring in “99ers,” or people who have exhausted all of their regular and extended unemployment benefits.
“All you’ve got to do is come into any black area and you can see that,” he said.
In the lead-up to the meeting with Obama, the CBC used its Facebook page to ask supporters which priorities lawmakers should bring up with the president. The response was “unbelievable,” Cleaver said. “I’d say 97 percent said to ask about jobs.”
CBC Members shared that statistic with the president and asked him to do more to help vulnerable communities hit the hardest by the recession. But his response wasn’t what some were looking for: Obama maintained that he would continue focusing on boosting the economy more broadly.
“We think that perhaps the federal government ought to move with some intentionality in dealing with high unemployment,” Cleaver said. Asked why he thought Obama was reluctant to take a more targeted approach to helping minority communities, the CBC chairman stammered.
“Um … Uh … You ask hard questions,” Cleaver said. “Maybe some of the other members will be more candid. I mean, I’m the chair.”
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