The White House said Obama planned to discuss the list during a stop at college science complex in Albany, N.Y. It’s the president’s latest attempt to portray congressional Republicans as obstructing his economic agenda at a time when millions of Americans are out of work. Obama has sought to tie Republican Mitt Romney to GOP leaders in Congress, arguing that the likely GOP presidential nominee would simply rubber-stamp their policies.

Obama’s wish list includes a number of proposals that he has outlined previously but have failed to gain traction in Congress. They include eliminating tax incentives for companies that ship jobs overseas and promoting new tax credits for small businesses and for companies to develop clean energy.

For veterans, Obama planned to press Congress to pass legislation creating a Veterans Job Corps to help service members returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan find work as police officers and firefighters.

And to address the housing crisis, Obama was expected to press anew on a measure designed to help homeowners refinance their homes at lower interest rates. Obama was making the housing pitch during a stop Friday in Reno, Nev., the state that has been the epicenter of the nation’s housing meltdown.

Obama was issuing his list during a stop at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at the State University of New York. The president has made a number of trips to universities, manufacturing plants and technology firms, seeking to promote research and development.

Republicans said they had a lengthy list of their own in the form of bills that have cleared the GOP-led House but remained bogged down by Senate Democrats. They accused Obama of recycling old ideas.

“We’ve passed nearly 30 jobs bills to increase American competitiveness, expand domestic energy production and rein in the red tape that is burdening small businesses. Democrats are blocking every one of them,” said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

White House spokesman Jay Carney, without detailing the specifics of Obama’s trip to Albany, said Monday that Congress was under increasing pressure to approve measures to help the economy.

“Every member of the House is up for election this year and a third of the Senate, and each of those members who are running for re-election has to explain to his or her constituents what they did while they were in Washington these last two years. Did they just say no?” Carney said.

A weak labor market already has left half of young college graduates either jobless or underemployed in positions that don’t fully use their skills and knowledge.

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Young adults with bachelor’s degrees are increasingly scraping by in lower-wage jobs – waiter or waitress, bartender, retail clerk or receptionist, for example – and that’s confounding their hopes a degree would pay off despite higher tuition and mounting student loans.

An analysis of government data conducted for The Associated Press lays bare the highly uneven prospects for holders of bachelor’s degrees.

Opportunities for college graduates vary widely.

While there’s strong demand in science, education and health fields, arts and humanities flounder. Median wages for those with bachelor’s degrees are down from 2000, hit by technological changes that are eliminating midlevel jobs such as bank tellers. Most future job openings are projected to be in lower-skilled positions such as home health aides, who can provide personalized attention as the U.S. population ages.

Taking underemployment into consideration, the job prospects for bachelor’s degree holders fell last year to the lowest level in more than a decade.

“I don’t even know what I’m looking for,” says Michael Bledsoe, who described months of fruitless job searches as he served customers at a Seattle coffeehouse. The 23-year-old graduated in 2010 with a creative writing degree.

Initially hopeful that his college education would create opportunities, Bledsoe languished for three months before finally taking a job as a barista, a position he has held for the last two years. In the beginning he sent three or four resumes day. But, Bledsoe said, employers questioned his lack of experience or the practical worth of his major. Now he sends a resume once every two weeks or so.

Bledsoe, currently making just above minimum wage, says he got financial help from his parents to help pay off student loans. He is now mulling whether to go to graduate school, seeing few other options to advance his career. “There is not much out there, it seems,” he said.

His situation highlights a widening but little-discussed labor problem. Perhaps more than ever, the choices that young adults make earlier in life – level of schooling, academic field and training, where to attend college, how to pay for it – are having long-lasting financial impact.

“You can make more money on average if you go to college, but it’s not true for everybody,” says Harvard economist Richard Freeman, noting the growing risk of a debt bubble with total U.S. student loan debt surpassing $1 trillion. “If you’re not sure what you’re going to be doing, it probably bodes well to take some job, if you can get one, and get a sense first of what you want from college.”

Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University who analyzed the numbers, said many people with a bachelor’s degree face a double whammy of rising tuition and poor job outcomes. “Simply put, we’re failing kids coming out of college,” he said, emphasizing that when it comes to jobs, a college major can make all the difference. “We’re going to need a lot better job growth and connections to the labor market, otherwise college debt will grow.”

By region, the Mountain West was most likely to have young college graduates jobless or underemployed – roughly 3 in 5. It was followed by the more rural southeastern U.S., including Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee. The Pacific region, including Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington, also was high on the list.

On the other end of the scale, the southern U.S., anchored by Texas, was most likely to have young college graduates in higher-skill jobs.

The figures are based on an analysis of 2011 Current Population Survey data by Northeastern University researchers and supplemented with material from Paul Harrington, an economist at Drexel University, and the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank. They rely on Labor Department assessments of the level of education required to do the job in 900-plus U.S. occupations, which were used to calculate the shares of young adults with bachelor’s degrees who were “underemployed.”

About 1.5 million, or 53.6 percent, of bachelor’s degree-holders under the age of 25 last year were jobless or underemployed, the highest share in at least 11 years. In 2000, the share was at a low of 41 percent, before the dot-com bust erased job gains for college graduates in the telecommunications and IT fields.

Out of the 1.5 million who languished in the job market, about half were underemployed, an increase from the previous year.

Broken down by occupation, young college graduates were heavily represented in jobs that require a high school diploma or less.

In the last year, they were more likely to be employed as waiters, waitresses, bartenders and food-service helpers than as engineers, physicists, chemists and mathematicians combined (100,000 versus 90,000). There were more working in office-related jobs such as receptionist or payroll clerk than in all computer professional jobs (163,000 versus 100,000). More also were employed as cashiers, retail clerks and customer representatives than engineers (125,000 versus 80,000).

According to government projections released last month, only three of the 30 occupations with the largest projected number of job openings by 2020 will require a bachelor’s degree or higher to fill the position – teachers, college professors and accountants. Most job openings are in professions such as retail sales, fast food and truck driving, jobs which aren’t easily replaced by computers.

College graduates who majored in zoology, anthropology, philosophy, art history and humanities were among the least likely to find jobs appropriate to their education level; those with nursing, teaching, accounting or computer science degrees were among the most likely.

In Nevada, where unemployment is the highest in the nation, Class of 2012 college seniors recently expressed feelings ranging from anxiety and fear to cautious optimism about what lies ahead.

With the state’s economy languishing in an extended housing bust, a lot of young graduates have shown up at job placement centers in tears. Many have been squeezed out of jobs by more experienced workers, job counselors said, and are now having to explain to prospective employers the time gaps in their resumes.

“It’s kind of scary,” said Cameron Bawden, 22, who is graduating from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas in December with a business degree. His family has warned him for years about the job market, so he has been building his resume by working part time on the Las Vegas Strip as a food runner and doing a marketing internship with a local airline.

Bawden said his friends who have graduated are either unemployed or working along the Vegas Strip in service jobs that don’t require degrees. “There are so few jobs and it’s a small city,” he said. “It’s all about who you know.”

Any job gains are going mostly to workers at the top and bottom of the wage scale, at the expense of middle-income jobs commonly held by bachelor’s degree holders. By some studies, up to 95 percent of positions lost during the economic recovery occurred in middle-income occupations such as bank tellers, the type of job not expected to return in a more high-tech age.

David Neumark, an economist at the University of California-Irvine, said a bachelor’s degree can have benefits that aren’t fully reflected in the government’s labor data. He said even for lower-skilled jobs such as waitress or cashier, employers tend to value bachelor’s degree-holders more highly than high-school graduates, paying them more for the same work and offering promotions.

In addition, U.S. workers increasingly may need to consider their position in a global economy, where they must compete with educated foreign-born residents for jobs. Longer-term government projections also may fail to consider “degree inflation,” a growing ubiquity of bachelor’s degrees that could make them more commonplace in lower-wage jobs but inadequate for higher-wage ones.

That future may be now for Kelman Edwards Jr., 24, of Murfreesboro, Tenn., who is waiting to see the returns on his college education.

After earning a biology degree last May, the only job he could find was as a construction worker for five months before he quit to focus on finding a job in his academic field. He applied for positions in laboratories but was told they were looking for people with specialized certifications.

“I thought that me having a biology degree was a gold ticket for me getting into places, but every other job wants you to have previous history in the field,” he said. Edwards, who has about $5,500 in student debt, recently met with a career counselor at Middle Tennessee State University. The counselor’s main advice: Pursue further education.

“Everyone is always telling you, `Go to college,’” Edwards said. “But when you graduate, it’s kind of an empty cliff.”

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But black people in Britain suffer from even higher rates of unemployment, especially during the last three recessions, a new study reports.

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According to research presented to the British Sociological Association, joblessness among the black population in the UK was 18 percent last year, compared with 15 percent in the US.

During the two previous recessions, the disparity was greater. In the 1990s, 28 percent of black Brits were unemployed while only 13 percent of African-Americans. In the early 1980s, the difference was 24 percent to 17 percent.

Professor Yaojun Li from the University of Manchester explained in the UK’s Indepedent that the gap had a lot to do with British policy.

“[There is] a fairly strong indication that the flexible labour market politics adopted in Britain in the last few decades [had not protected] the minority ethnic groups against the repercussions of recessions.”

Li claims that the employment rate is so different because there are fewer federal labor policies that address social inequality and initiatives similar to American-style affirmative action established to help blacks in the UK. Those programs, he claimed, have helped some blacks in America.

The study also revealed that black women in Britain also had been hit harder by unemployment in the three recessions, given these numbers: 25 percent in the 1980s, 26 percent in the 1990s and 17 percent last year, compared with 20 percent, 12 percent and 13 percent in the US.

The study, which examined 2.7 million responses from three datasets in the UK and US, also reported that one in 12 black Britons are unemployed, compared with one in 16 in the US.

Li added:

“There is greater ethnic inequality in Britain’s…in the USA for both sexes…If you are black you are more likely to be without work in the UK.”

Tunde Banjoko, chief executive of the welfare-to-work charity Local Employment Access Projects, told the Guardian:

“I think that there has been a lack of awareness about the fact that so many black people are starting from such a low economic base that their life chances are so affected. In the US there is affirmative action and people do get in on those programmes. But once in they rise on their own merits.”

Still, no matter how you slice it, joblessness is extremely high in both communities. And whether one country has implemented social programs or not, the issue affects blacks on both sides of the Atlantic.

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Brett Johnson is a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based writer and the founder of the music and culture blog VeryArtistical.com.

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The 54-year-old, who had been laid off from her IT job in Illinois, said the recruiter who responded to her online resume two years ago liked her qualifications and was set to schedule an interview. But he backed away, she said, when he learned she had been out of work for 13 months.

The employer he represented would not consider applicants who were unemployed for more than six months, she said.

“What they don’t consider is that these are not normal times,” said Chesney-Offutt, who was unemployed for nearly three years before landing a job.

As high unemployment persists more than four years after the start of the Great Recession – and nearly three years after it was officially declared over – many who have struggled for years without work say they face discrimination. Nearly 13 million Americans, or 8.3 percent, were unemployed in February, the U.S. Department of Labor says.

As of January, California, Connecticut Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Tennessee were considering legislation to prohibit employers from discriminating against the unemployed in help-wanted ads or in direct hiring or in screenings by employment agencies, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Employers typically would face fines if found violating the law. The Oregon House, for example, voted last month to fine employers $1,000 if they post a job ad telling unemployed workers to not apply.

Some personnel managers say evidence of discrimination is sketchy and that hiring decisions are based on a host of subjective reasons that defy remedies imposed by laws.

“There’s much more subliminal discrimination against the unemployed that’s hard to document,” said Lynne Sarikas, director of the MBA Career Center at Northeastern University’s College of Business Administration. “Hiring is an art, not a science. You rely on a gut reaction.”

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For example, employers may suspect that an unemployed applicant is seeking an available job for the wrong reasons, she said.

“A manager is going to get the vibe that they’ll take anything to get a job and if something better comes along they’re out the door,” Sarikas said.

Also, some long-term unemployed applicants may come across as too urgent for work, “and desperation doesn’t translate well in an interview,” she said.

Terri Michaels, who manages a Hartford employment firm that primarily staffs temporary employees, criticized hiring practices that screen out unemployed job seekers. Despite the policies of small staffing companies such as hers, some large employers have an unspoken policy against hiring applicants who’ve been out of work for two years or more because they want workers with a stable job history and recent references, she said.

“They won’t be able to say it but they’ll act on it,” said Michaels, manager of Stewart Staffing Solutions.

Employers generally expect job candidates – even while unemployed – to show they did some work such as volunteering or working temporary jobs, she said.

“People who did not work in any capacity, didn’t do anything are not as desirable to prospective employers,” Michaels said. “One has to question, is that discriminatory? I don’t know.”

Michaels said employers may use unemployment to weed out applicants for no other reason than to cut down a huge number of resumes for coveted job openings.

“When you have 14 million unemployed, everyone is applying for everything,” she said. “You have to be somewhat discriminating.”

A New Jersey lawmaker who co-sponsored the nation’s only law barring ads that restrict applicants to those already with a job, agrees that job hunters need to show they’ve been active, even in unemployment.

“Don’t sit at home. Make yourself available to your community,” said Assemblywoman Celeste M. Riley.

Still, she said she backed the legislation after colleagues showed her employment ads specifying that the unemployed should not bother applying.

“I found that absolutely reprehensible,” Riley said. “When you apply for a job, you should be viewed based on your skill level, not whether you have a job or not.”

Connecticut lawmakers are proposing legislation that would ban discriminatory job ads, but may back off from a more far-reaching provision that would permit unemployed job seekers who claim discrimination to file a complaint with the state’s human rights commission or sue in court.

The largest business group in the state, the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, sees a ban on discriminatory job ads as reasonable, but lobbyist Kia Murrell said businesses will fight efforts to give workers the right to sue over claims of discrimination.

“You as the employer will be shaking in fear of a claim of unemployment discrimination,” she said.

The state’s human rights commission told lawmakers that substantiating bias in hiring would be difficult and could require its staff to be nearly doubled if just a small fraction of Connecticut’s 150,000 unemployed were to file a discrimination claim.

State Sen. Edith Prague and Rep. Bruce Zalaski, who head the legislature’s Labor and Public Employees Committee, said they may drop the provision allowing claims of discrimination.

“It’s not our intent that everyone can be sued,” Zalaski said.

The National Employment Law Project, based in New York, wants states to add laws that do more than ban discriminatory ads. Laws should explicitly prohibit employers and employment agencies from eliminating from consideration candidates who are unemployed, the advocacy group says.

“You want to tell employers they can’t screen workers out of the process because they’re unemployed,” said George Wentworth, a lawyer for the group.

Chesney-Offutt, of Sandwich, Ill., said she took a 4-hour-a-week job teaching voice lessons so she could tell prospective employers she was employed.

“They didn’t care I was unemployed,” she said. “They just wanted to know if I could teach voice lessons.”

The strategy worked and she eventually got a job in insurance customer service, taking calls from customers reporting claims. It doesn’t allow her to use her information technology skills, but she’s glad to be working.

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“Day by day, we’re restoring this economy from crisis,” Obama said. “But we can’t stop there. We’ve got to make this economy ready for tomorrow.”

The president spoke from a Rolls-Royce plant that makes jet-engine parts, outlining his bid to create regional manufacturing institutes nationwide. But the economic news driving the story was a fresh report showing that employers added 227,000 jobs in February, underlining an economy headed in the right direction.

Privately, Obama’s team knows outside factors in the United States and abroad could still derail the economy in the months before voters head to the polls. But every strong month of hiring is seen as undercutting Republican arguments that Obama has failed to steer the economy out of the recession.

Obama was traveling from the Virginia manufacturing plant to an evening of raising campaign cash in Texas.

The president said Rolls-Royce is about to add more than 200 new jobs, the kind of manufacturing that “gives me confidence that better days are coming.”

Obama has highlighted the U.S. economy’s addition of 429,000 manufacturing jobs during the past two years, touring factories in Wisconsin, Washington state and North Carolina in recent weeks. The United States lost 2.2 million manufacturing jobs in the two years before that.

Political calculations are not far from the surface in these trips – Virginia is expected to be a major election battleground later this year, and the president was ending the day with fundraisers in Houston to stock up on campaign cash.

In Virginia, Obama promoted a $1 billion plan to create a network of up to 15 regional institutes to create partnerships among private industry, universities and community colleges and government. He also announced a $45 million pilot program that would show the type of potential collaboration among academia and industry.

The president has promoted a number of initiatives aimed at manufacturers and the return of jobs to the U.S., including the elimination of tax incentives that make it more attractive for companies to ship jobs overseas.

In Texas, Obama was raising campaign cash among supporters who live in a reliably Republican state. Jimmy Carter, in 1976, was the last Democratic presidential candidate to carry Texas, but changing demographics and an influx in Hispanic voters have given Democrats hopes of competing in the state beyond the 2012 elections.

Obama’s fundraisers included a reception with more than 600 people at Union Station at Minute Maid Park, home of the Houston Astros, with tickets starting at $500 per person.

The president was also attending a dinner with 70 people at the home of Tony Chase, the CEO of recruiting and staffing firm ChaseSource and a law professor at the University of Houston, and Dina Alsowayel, the associate director of women’s studies at the University of Houston. Tickets cost $35,800 per person.

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White House economist Alan Krueger says the budget the president will release Monday forecasts the unemployment rate will average 8.9 percent in 2012. But he says that estimate was made in mid-November and is already “stale and out of date.”

So the White House plans to issue a new forecast projecting the creation of 2 million jobs this year. That could bring the national unemployment rate down to about 8 percent.

But the sunnier projection is based in part on whether Congress passes the president’s economic agenda, including elements of his jobs bill that have been previously rejected by lawmakers.

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Applications fell 50,000, the biggest drop in the seasonally adjusted figure in more than six years, the Labor Department said Thursday. The four-week average, which smooths out fluctuations, dropped to 379,000. That’s the second-lowest such figure in more than three years.

A department spokesman cautioned that volatility at this time of year is common. Applications had jumped two weeks ago, largely because companies laid off thousands of temporary workers hired for the holidays.

Still, when weekly applications fall consistently below 375,000, it usually signals that hiring is strong enough to push down the unemployment rate.

“This continues a clear downshift in claims,” said Ian Shepherdson, an economist at High Frequency Economics.

Shepherdson suggested that stronger hiring should follow.

Hiring improved in the second half of 2011. In December, employers added 200,000 jobs. That marked the sixth straight month in which the economy added at least 100,000 jobs. And the unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent, a three-year low.

For all of 2011, the economy added 1.6 million jobs. That was up sharply from 940,000 in 2010. Economists say they expect roughly 1.9 million more jobs to be added this year, according to a survey by The Associated Press.

Still, the job market has a long way to go before it fully recovers from the damage of the Great Recession, which wiped out 8.7 million jobs. More than 13 million people remain unemployed. Millions more have given up looking for work and so are no longer counted as unemployed.

The overall number of people receiving benefits, which isn’t seasonally adjusted, rose. More than 7.8 million people received benefits in the final week of last year. They include about 3.6 million people covered by extended-benefit programs begun during the recession.

The manufacturing sector remains a bright spot. Factory output jumped 0.9 percent in December, the Federal Reserve said this week. That was the sharpest monthly gain in a year. Manufacturing gained 225,000 jobs last year, the most since 1997.

The pickup in hiring reflects stronger economic growth. The economy likely grew at an annual rate of about 3 percent in the final three months of last year, economists estimate.

That would be a sharp improvement over the 1.8 percent annual growth rate in the July-September quarter. Rising consumer spending is thought to be fueling much of the gain in the current quarter.

Even so, economists worry that growth could slow in the first half of 2012. Europe is almost certain to fall into recession because of its financial troubles.

And wages aren’t keeping up with inflation. The department said in a separate report that average inflation-adjusted hourly earnings dropped 0.9 percent last year.

Without more jobs and higher pay, consumers might have to cut back on spending. That would weigh down growth next year. Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of the economy.

Are you currently employed full-time?

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The Labor Department said Friday that employers added a net 200,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent, the lowest since February 2009. The rate has dropped for four straight months. But black unemployment rose again from 15.5 to 15.8 percent overall and from 39.6 to 42.1 among African-American teens.

The hiring gains cap a six-month stretch in which the economy generated 100,000 jobs or more in each month. That hasn’t happened since April 2006.

“There is no question that today’s employment report is a positive and there is also no question that the pace of job growth has accelerated of late,” said Dan Greenhaus, an analyst at BTIG LLC, a brokerage firm

A better job market is a positive sign for President Barack Obama, who is bound to face voters with the highest unemployment rate of any sitting president since World War II. Unemployment was 7.8 percent when Obama took office in January 2009.

Still, the level may matter less to his re-election chances if the rate continues to fall. History suggests that presidents’ re-election prospects hinge less on the unemployment rate itself than on the rate’s direction during the year or two before Election Day.

For all of 2011, the economy added 1.6 million jobs, better than the 940,000 added in 2010. The unemployment rate averaged 8.9 percent last year, down from 9.6 percent the previous year.

Economists forecast that the job gains will top 2.1 million this year.

The December report painted a picture of a broadly improving job market. Average hourly pay rose, providing consumers with more income to spend. The average work week lengthened, a sign that business is picking up and companies may soon need more workers.

And hiring increased across most major industries.

Manufacturing added 23,000 jobs, as did the health care industry. Transportation and warehousing added 50,000 jobs. Retailers added 28,000 jobs. Even the beleaguered construction industry added 17,000 workers.

Economists cautioned that some of the gains reflected temporary hiring for the holiday season. The government adjusts the figures to account for those seasonal factors, but doesn’t always fully account for them.

The gains in transportation and warehousing, for example, reflected a strong increase in hiring for couriers and messengers. That could stem from a big jump in online shopping over the holidays, the department said.

The nation’s work force, which includes both people working and those searching for jobs, shrank slightly last months and is little changed from this spring. That’s a concern because a strengthening job market normally draws more applicants.

The work force has declined by about 160,000 over the past two months, one reason the unemployment rate has fallen.

“You have to take that unemployment rate decline with a grain of salt when you look at the declines in the labor force,” said Marisa DiNatale, an economist at Moody’s Analytics.

The government only counts people as unemployed if they are actively searching for jobs. Discouraged workers who have given up on looking are not included in the rate.

And some of those who are counted as employed are working part time, but want full-time work.

When including those groups, the broader “underemployment” rate was 15.2 percent. That’s down from 15.6 percent the previous month, but still high. The figure has dropped for three straight months.

And the job market has a long way to go to recover from the Great Recession. The nation has 6 million fewer jobs that it did in December 2007, when the recession began.

More jobs and higher pay are crucial to helping the economy grow. They could enable shoppers to increase spending, which fuels 70 percent of economic activity.

The economy likely grew at an annual rate of above 3 percent, a healthy pace.

A more robust hiring market coincides with other positive data that show the economy ended the year with some momentum.

Weekly applications for unemployment benefits have fallen to levels last seen more than three years ago. Holiday sales were solid. And November and December were the strongest months of 2011 for U.S. auto sales.

Many businesses say they are ready to step up hiring in early 2012 after seeing stronger consumer confidence and greater demand for their products.

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Far fewer people are seeking unemployment benefits than just three months ago – a sign that layoffs are falling sharply.

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The number of people applying for benefits fell last week to 366,000, the fewest since May 2008. If the number stayed that low consistently, it would likely signal that hiring is strong enough to lower unemployment.

The unemployment rate is now 8.6 percent. The last time applications were this low, the rate was 5.4 percent.

The big question is whether fewer layoffs will translate into robust hiring. It hasn’t happened yet, even though job growth has been rising consistently each month.

The four-week average of weekly unemployment applications, which smooths out fluctuations, dropped last week to 387,750. That’s the lowest four-week since July 2008. The four-week average has declined in 10 of the past 12 weeks.

“Labor market conditions have taken a turn for the better in recent weeks,” Michael Gapen, an economist at Barclays Capital, said in a note to clients. “Payroll growth should improve in the coming months.”

Applications for unemployment benefits are a measure of the pace of layoffs. Job cuts have fallen sharply since the recession. Employers have been hiring at only a modest pace. But when applications fall below 375,000 – consistently – that usually signals that hiring is strong enough to lower the unemployment rate.

The downward trend suggests that companies are cutting fewer workers as the economy picks up. It also comes as Congress is wrangling over whether to extend emergency unemployment benefits, which are set to expire at the end of this year.

Growth may top 3 percent in the final three months of this year, according to many economists. That would be up from 2 percent in the July-September quarter.

Other recent reports suggest the job market is improving a bit. In the past three months, net job gains have averaged 143,000 a month. That compares with an average of 84,000 in the previous three months.

In November, employers added 120,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate fell to 8.6 percent from 9 percent. That was the lowest unemployment rate in 2 1/2 years. But about half that decline occurred because many of the unemployed gave up looking for work. When people stop looking for a job, they’re no longer counted as unemployed.

Employers posted fewer jobs in October than in the previous month, the government said Tuesday, though the decline was modest.

Job openings have risen by about 35 percent since the recession officially ended in June 2009. But they’re still about 25 percent below pre-recession levels.

About 6.7 million people are receiving unemployment benefits. About 2 million will lose their benefits by mid-February if the emergency program expires.

Lawmakers differ over how long benefits should last. The House passed a Republican bill Tuesday that would renew emergency aid but reduce the maximum duration to 59 weeks from the current 99 weeks.

Democrats want to keep the full 99 weeks. The measure is part of broader legislation in the Democratic-led Senate that would also extend a Social Security tax cut.

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Over the past decade, the share of black households ranking among the poorest poor – those earning less than $15,000 – climbed from 20 percent to 26 percent, according to census figures released Thursday. Other racial and ethnic groups posted smaller increases. During the same period, the percentage of African-Americans making $200,000 or more a year was unchanged at 1.1 percent, even after the Great Recession.

Meanwhile, in a reversal of the Great Migration that once pushed blacks to flee Southern racism for economic opportunity in northern cities, many affluent blacks are returning to the South. Incomes and black populations have grown in the last decade in cities such as Atlanta, Dallas and Miami.

David Lamothe, associate general counsel for a major bank in Charlotte, grew up in New York City with parents who immigrated from Haitian poverty and climbed into the middle class. Now he is associate general counsel for a major bank in Charlotte, where he lives with his pediatrician wife and their three children, ages 8 to 14.

He is acutely aware of differences in the dynamic of today’s black community.

“Growing up, when we went to a party, it was all black kids, and we had no idea how much money their parents made. Everybody went to the same party. My best friend lived in the projects. My kids don’t have that,” said Lamothe. “There’s not much opportunity for them to see those kids (from low-income families). There’s more stratification.”

Despite some gains for middle-class blacks, African-Americans on average last year still had rising poverty and worsening economic situations compared with whites. The mostly suburban counties where blacks had growing and higher-than-average income make up about 19 percent of the black population. That’s compared with 45 percent of blacks who lived in urban counties and small towns where black incomes fell relative to whites.

Blacks were more likely than other groups to live in neighborhoods with poverty rates of 40 percent or more. Roughly one in nine of them did.

Lamothe’s response is to make sure his children recognize their humble roots.

“I stress to them, just because somebody pushes a broom doesn’t make you any better than them. You have family members on both sides who do that kind of job. You also have family who have been very fortunate professionally, but that doesn’t make us better than anybody else.”

Still, a gap remains between black families who live in different neighborhoods, attend different schools and live different lives.

“Other than skin color, they don’t really resemble you,” Lamothe said.

Yet there is still a psychic glue that bonds black people of all incomes together, said Blair L.M. Kelley, a history professor at North Carolina State University. The institution of the black church remains strong, she said, as does a shared sense of responsibility.

“There’s such a long-term ethos in African-American thought about giving back,” Kelley said.

“We all have someone who is struggling – a sister, a cousin,” she said. “As much as you are prospering, you are surely related to someone who needs a check from you. And you will give it to them. None of us are disconnected from government workers or the working poor or people struggling with the criminal justice system. You can be doing well, but you don’t forget it because it’s part of your everyday life.”

Roderick Harrison, a Howard University sociologist and former chief of racial statistics at the Census Bureau, said that the recent census data showing the success of some blacks could give ammunition to people who claim that black poverty is more a result of character flaws than societal structures that have been shaped by discrimination.

He said that among some segments of the population, discussion of racial disparities “quite often is characterized as playing the race card, when you should be working harder or staying in school longer or making better life choices.”

William H. Frey, a Brookings Institution demographer who did a broad analysis of the race and income data, said the changes could pose challenges to courting the traditional black vote.

Obama is pushing a re-election theme of middle-class renewal, painting Republican reluctance to raise taxes as protecting the wealthy at the expense of average families.

“The Democratic Party will surely gain consistent support from these new black suburbanites, but the active support for traditional black issues like civil rights may take a back seat,” Frey said, citing issues such as schools, housing and public safety that may eclipse civil rights.

Lamothe said he was elated when Barack Obama became the first black president, and things like universal health care appeal to him and his wife. But he dislikes some of Obama’s recent statements about the wealthy.

“It’s like now I’m the enemy,” said Lamothe, who describes himself as a social liberal and fiscal conservative.

“I’m OK with saying those who have more have a responsibility to help out those who need a hand. If I got to pay a little more in taxes I may not like it, but I’ll grin and bear it. What I don’t like it is, `They’re getting over and not paying their fair share.’”

“Somehow me working hard and being successful, I’ve gotten over? I got over because I worked hard for it.”

African-Americans have overwhelmingly supported liberal policies since Democratic President Lyndon Johnson pushed through civil rights legislation of the 1960s.

Could Lamothe see himself voting for a Republican?

“Oh, hell no,” he said.

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November’s sharp drop in the unemployment rate shows that jobs are finally moving in the right direction and suggests the economy is on firmer footing as the country heads into a presidential election year.

The Labor Department reported the jobless rate fell to 8.6 percent in November from 9 percent the month before, a 2 1/2 year low.

That’s still high unemployment by historical standards. And lots of problems still lurk – from Europe’s debt crisis to congressional gridlock to the tens of millions of Americans still out of work or otherwise feeling economic distress. Furthermore, part of the improvement came because 300,000 people stopped their job searches and were no longer counted as unemployed.

But Friday’s report, combined with other recent economic data showing advances in manufacturing and consumer spending, could give Obama momentum for the re-election campaign.

The White House and congressional Democrats were quiet in showing any enthusiasm they might have felt, instead using the new figures to step up criticism of anti-tax Republicans for blocking measures they said could help create even more jobs. Those include an extension of an expiring Social Security payroll tax cut that largely benefits the middle class.

“The unemployment rate went down,” Obama said. “And despite some strong headwinds this year, the American economy has now created in the private sector jobs for the past 21 months in a row. That’s nearly 3 million new jobs in all, and more than half a million over the last four months.”

Said House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson of Connecticut: “Today’s unemployment numbers, while encouraging, simply underscore the urgency for Congress to address the top issue facing American families- jobs.”

Republicans were publicly unimpressed with the jobs report, insisting Obama hadn’t done enough and emphasizing that the jobless rate was still higher than when he took office in January 2009, when it stood at 7.7 percent.

“Any job creation is welcome news, but the jobless rate in this country is still unacceptable. Today marks the 34th consecutive month of unemployment above 8 percent,” said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

That view was echoed on the campaign trail.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, in a Fox News interview, acknowledged that the report was good news but said it wouldn’t help Obama politically. “This is the slowest recovery we’ve seen since (President Herbert) Hoover,” Romney said. “He’s going to have a hard time putting perfume on this pig.” Hoover held office from 1929 to early 1933, at the outset of the Great Depression.

Despite stimulus measures by the Obama administration, Congress and the Federal Reserve, unemployment has remained high, peaking at 10.1 percent in October 2009 and staying around 9 percent for most of 2011.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, another Republican seeking Obama’s job, noted that a major part of the sharp drop in the unemployment rate was “not because entrepreneurs were creating new jobs” but because some 300,000 Americans “have simply given up looking for work.”

“The Obama model of class warfare, government takeovers in the economy and creating fear and uncertainty for job-creators have failed,” Gingrich asserted.

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., made a similar point about discouraged jobless workers and said, “My heart breaks as we approach the holidays for American families who have been abandoned by this president so that he can implement his radical agenda.”

The president didn’t try to take credit for the lower figures.

Asked about Obama’s measured response, White House press secretary Jay Carney said: “We don’t make much out of one month’s numbers. We look for trends, and we know we have an enormous amount of work to do. 8.6 percent unemployment is way too high.”

Still, “there’s a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel” for gloomy Democrats, said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University. “It’s good news, but it’s the kind of thing you have to rejoice about quietly. You don’t want to hear the champagne corks popping. There’s still so many people unemployed.”

But Baker said that if Obama can demonstrate a “reasonable decline over time” in the jobless rate, people might give him the benefit of the doubt. “It doesn’t have to get to historical lows to convince people that you’re on the right track.”

No president since Franklin D. Roosevelt has been re-elected with a jobless rate higher than 8 percent. Roosevelt won re-election in 1936 with a rate of 16.6 percent, and again in 1940 with a rate of 14.6 percent – but joblessness was on the way down from a peak of around 25 percent.

The jobless rate peaked at 10.6 percent during the brutal 16-month 1981-82 recession while Ronald Reagan was president. But on Election Day 1984 it had fallen to 7.2 percent.

Obama used a joint appearance with former President Bill Clinton on Friday to renew his call to a fractured Congress to extend and expand the cut in the payroll tax cut that finances Social Security and Medicare. The tax cut, due to expire at the end of the year, affects more than 160 million Americans.

Republicans favor extending the tax cut, but have blocked Democratic attempts to do so by paying for it with a new tax on households with more than $1 million in annual taxable income.

With polls showing most Americans favor higher taxes on the wealthy to help bring down soaring budget deficits, Obama and congressional Democrats are portraying Republicans as defenders of the wealthy at the expense of the middle class – a political theme they’re sure to carry into the election year.

The jobs report comes during a week that saw solid stock market gains, including a near-500-point Dow Jones industrials rise on Wednesday, all potential good news for Obama.

“Let’s say the stock market goes up another 500 or 600 points, and unemployment goes down below 8 percent by Election Day. That could allow for a big Obama surge,” said Thomas Cronin, a presidential historian at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colo.

But that “if” is a big one.

The prospects of significantly bringing down the jobless rate to pre-recession levels anytime soon “remain slim,” suggests University of Maryland business economist Peter Morici. “The economy must add 13.1 million jobs over the next three years-364,000 each month-to bring unemployment down to 6 percent.”

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November’s jobless rate was the lowest recorded since March 2009. The rate fell partly because more workers got jobs, but also because about 315,000 workers dropped out of the labor force, and the jobless rate counts only people who are actively looking for work.

While Labor Department’s numbers are encouraging, they come with something of an asterisk.

Unemployment benefits are believed to have one of the most stimulative effects on the economy, since recipients of these benefits are likely to spend all of the money they receive quickly and so pump more spending through the economy.

“They say businesses are refusing to look at résumés from the unemployed,” said Esther Perry, 59, of Bedford, Mass., who participated in a recent report on unemployed workers put together from USAction, a liberal coalition. “What do you think my chances are? Once unemployment runs out, I don’t know what I will do.”

Read the full article at The New York Times.

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The number of students recieiving subsidized lunch rose 17 percent since the 2006, according to Department of Agriculture data gathered by the New York Times. Eleven states had four-year increases of 25 percent or more.

“These are very large increases and a direct reflection of the hardships American families are facing,” said Benjamin Senauer, a University of Minnesota economist who studies the meals program, adding that the surge had happened so quickly “that people like myself who do research are struggling to keep up with it.”

Read more at the New York Times.

The number of people who applied for unemployment benefits last week fell to a seasonally adjusted 390,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. That’s the fewest since April.

The U.S. trade deficit narrowed to $43.1 billion in September, its lowest point of the year, the Commerce Department said. Foreign sales of American-made autos, airplanes and heavy machinery pushed exports to an all-time high.

The data suggest layoffs are easing and the economy grew slightly better over the summer than the government had estimated a month ago.

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Stocks rose in early-morning trading, one day after the market tumbled over concerns that Europe’s debt crisis could worsen.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained more than 46 points.

The reports “are modestly strong relative to expectations – encouraging confidence that the economy is gaining a bit of momentum,” said Pierre Ellis, an analyst at Decision Economics.

Weekly applications for unemployment benefits have declined in three of the past four weeks, the Labor Department said. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, fell to 400,000, also the lowest point since April.

The downward trend in applications suggests businesses are laying off fewer workers. Still, applications need to consistently drop below 375,000 to signal sustained job gains. They haven’t been at that level since February.

“The labor market is still weak and quite stagnant but there are hopeful signs of some modest improvement,” said Steve Wood, chief economist at Insight Economics.

In September, exports increased 1.4 percent to a record $180.4 billion, reflecting a big increase in shipments of U.S. made autos and auto parts, the Commerce Department said. Imports were up a smaller 0.4 percent to $223.5 billion. Oil imports slowed after huge gains earlier in the year.

The deficit has narrowed for the last three months.

Paul Dales, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics, said the lower trade deficit in September could boost growth in the July-September quarter to an annual rate of 2.8 percent, up from the government’s initial estimate of 2.5 percent.

Still, Europe’s debt crisis could push that region into a recession next year, which could reduce demand for American exports and slow U.S. growth.

A higher deficit acts as a drag on economic growth because it means fewer jobs for American workers.

The outlook for hiring has been mixed in recent months. The economy added only 80,000 jobs in October, the fewest in four months.

But the government also said last week that employers added more jobs in August and September than it had initially reported, and the unemployment rate dipped to 9 percent.

A separate report this week showed that employers advertised more jobs in September than at any other point in the past three years. That’s a positive sign for future hiring, since most companies typically take one to three months to fill vacant positions.

Still, the unemployment rate has been stuck near 9 percent for more than two years, and the Federal Reserve said last week that it is not expected to fall significantly through the end of next year.

The number of people receiving unemployment aid under regular state programs dropped 92,000 to 3.62 million in the week that ended Oct. 29. That doesn’t include more than 3 million who are receiving extended benefits under an emergency program paid for by the federal government.

All told, more than 6.8 million people received benefits in the week that ended Oct. 22, the last period for which inclusive figures are available.

Early last year, 75 percent were receiving checks. The figure is now 48 percent – a shift that points to a growing crisis of long-term unemployment. Nearly one-third of America’s 14 million unemployed have had no job for a year or more.

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Congress is expected to decide by year’s end whether to continue providing emergency unemployment benefits for up to 99 weeks in the hardest-hit states. If the emergency benefits expire, the proportion of the unemployed receiving aid would fall further.

The ranks of the poor would also rise. The Census Bureau says unemployment benefits kept 3.2 million people from slipping into poverty last year. It defines poverty as annual income below $22,314 for a family of four.

Yet for a growing share of the unemployed, a vote in Congress to extend the benefits to 99 weeks is irrelevant. They’ve had no job for more than 99 weeks. They’re no longer eligible for benefits.

Their options include food stamps or other social programs. Nearly 46 million people received food stamps in August, a record total. That figure could grow as more people lose unemployment benefits.

So could the government’s disability rolls. Applications for the disability insurance program have jumped about 50 percent since 2007.

“There’s going to be increased hardship,” said Wayne Vroman, an economist at the Urban Institute.

The number of unemployed has been roughly stable this year. Yet the number receiving benefits has plunged 30 percent.

Government unemployment benefits weren’t designed to sustain people for long stretches without work. They usually don’t have to. In the recoveries from the previous three recessions, the longest average duration of unemployment was 21 weeks, in July 1983.

By contrast, in the wake of the Great Recession, the figure reached 41 weeks in September. That’s the longest on records dating to 1948. The figure is now 39 weeks.

“It was a good safety net for a shorter recession,” said Carl Van Horn, an economist at Rutgers University. It assumes “the economy will experience short interruptions and then go back to normal.”

Weekly unemployment checks average about $300 nationwide. If the extended benefits aren’t renewed, growth could slow by up to a half-percentage point next year, economists say.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that each $1 spent on unemployment benefits generates up to $1.90 in economic growth. The CBO has found that the program is the most effective government policy for increasing growth among 11 options it’s analyzed.

Jon Polis lives in East Greenwich, R.I., one of the 20 states where 99 weeks of benefits are available. He used them all up after losing his job as a warehouse worker in 2008. His benefits paid for groceries, car maintenance and health insurance.

Now, Polis, 55, receives disability insurance payments, food stamps and lives in government-subsidized housing. He’s been unable to find work because employers in his field want computer skills he doesn’t have.

“Employers are crying that they can’t find qualified help,” he said. But the ones he interviewed with “weren’t willing to train anybody.”

From late 2007, when the recession began, to early 2010, the number of people receiving unemployment benefits rose more than four-fold, to 11.5 million.

But the economy has remained so weak that an analysis of long-term unemployment data suggests that about 2 million people have used up 99 weeks of checks and still can’t find work.

Contributing to the smaller share of the unemployed who are receiving benefits: Some of them are college graduates or others seeking jobs for the first time. They aren’t eligible. Only those who have lost a job through no fault of their own qualify.

The proportion of the unemployed receiving benefits usually falls below 50 percent during an economic recovery. Many have either quit jobs or are new to the job market and don’t qualify.

Today, the proportion is falling for a very different reason: Jobs remain scarce. So more of the unemployed are exhausting their benefits.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has noted that the long-term unemployed increasingly find it hard to find work as their skills and professional networks erode. In a speech last month, Bernanke called long-term unemployment a “national crisis” that should be a top priority for Congress.

Lawmakers will have to decide whether to continue the extended benefits by the end of this year. If the program ends, nearly 2.2 million people will be cut off by February.

Congress has extended the program nine times. But it might balk at the $45 billion cost. It will be the first time the Republican-led House will vote on the issue.

The Labor Department says unemployment rates fell in 280 large metro areas from August to September. They rose in 61 and were unchanged in 31. That’s the most number of cities to see a decline since April.

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Nationwide, employers added a net 103,000 jobs in September. And the unemployment rate was 9.1 percent for the third straight month.

Unlike national and state data, metro unemployment figures aren’t adjusted for seasonal changes. Many of the areas with the sharpest drops in unemployment were cities with large universities. They likely added jobs at the start of the academic year.

Organized by Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh, the job fair featured hundreds of job openings available only to individuals with a felony on their record.

“In this tough job market, we know that it is difficult, regardless of whether you have a felony or not, to find a job,” Pugh said. “But we feel that population needs just a boost of confidence and some hope that there are employers out there who will give them second chances.”

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But Forte, a 55-year-old from Cleveland, says a recruiter for an employment agency told her she would not be considered for the job because she had been out of work too long. She had lost her job driving a bus.

“They didn’t even want to hear about my experience,” said Forte. “It didn’t make sense. You’re always told just go out there and get a job.”

Forte, scraping by now as a part time substitute school bus driver, is part of a growing number of unemployed or underemployed Americans who complain they are being screened out of job openings for the very reason they’re looking for work in the first place. Some companies and job agencies prefer applicants who already have jobs, or haven’t been jobless too long.

She could get help from a provision in President Barack Obama’s jobs bill, which would ban companies with 15 or more employees from refusing to consider – or offer a job to – someone who is unemployed. The measure also applies to employment agencies and would prohibit want ads that disqualify applicants just because they are unemployed.

But Obama’s bill faces a troubled path in Congress, as Republicans strongly oppose its plans for tax increases on the wealthy and other spending provisions. Should the bill fail, Democrats are sure to remind jobless voters that the GOP blocked an attempt to redress discrimination against them at a time when work is so hard to find.

The effort to protect the unemployed has drawn praise from workers’ rights advocates, but business groups say it will just stir up needless litigation by frustrated job applicants. The provision would give those claiming discrimination a right to sue, and violators would face fines of up to $1,000 per day, plus attorney fees and costs.

“Threatening business owners with new lawsuits is not going to help create jobs and will probably have a chilling effect on hiring,” said Cynthia Magnuson, spokeswoman for the National Federation of Independent Business. “Business owners may be concerned about posting a new job if they could face a possible lawsuit.”

A survey earlier this year by the National Employment Law Project found more than 150 job postings on employment Web sites such as CareerBuilder.com and Monster.com requiring that applicants “must be currently employed” or using other exclusionary language based on current employment status.

“It’s really alarming to us that employers continue to ignore the strong public condemnation of this practice,” said Maurice Emsellem, the legal group’s policy co-director.

The issue has gained more prominence as the unemployment level remains stuck over 9 percent and a record 4.5 million people – nearly one-third of the unemployed – have been out of work for a year or more. And older workers, like Forte, often struggle to find new jobs.

“There’s a flood of workers looking for jobs right now and unfortunately, this is a convenient way to streamline the process” by employers, Emsellem said. Some companies might assume people who have been out of work for several months may not be stellar performers, he said.

The practice has also drawn concern from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where members at a hearing earlier this year said barring unemployed people from employment may have a greater effect on blacks and Hispanics with higher jobless rates.

Ron Cooper, a former commission general counsel during the Bush administration now in private practice, said he thinks the problem is being overblown.

“People, I’m sure, are looking for shortcuts to trim the applicant pool that they’re looking at,” Cooper said. “But I’ve never heard of this as a top-shelf criteria for people making those decisions.”

Forte says she had sought a job at FedEx through the agency Kelly Services, where she said a recruiter told her the company was not considering applicants who have been out of work longer than six months. “Here I am, a seasoned worker. I didn’t have six months, but I had eight years of experience,” she said.

Jane Stehney, a Kelly spokeswoman, said the company does not discriminate on any basis, including unemployment status. And Sally Davenport, a spokeswoman for FedEx in Memphis, said her company has no policy barring the unemployed from seeking a job and never instructed the temp agency to discriminate

“We interview and hire the candidates best qualified for the job,” she said. “There was obviously confusion on the part of the temp agency.”

Last month, the job search Web site Indeed.com announced it would not accept any job ad that seeks to exclude the unemployed.

“Our policy is to exclude job listings that do not comply with federal or local laws related to discriminatory hiring practices as well as job listings that discriminate against the unemployed,” said Indeed.com spokeswoman Sophie Beaurpere.

Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat who has sponsored a separate bill protecting the unemployed, said he understands that employers need the right to hire according to their needs and to factor in work experience.

“But they shouldn’t have the right to discriminate from the start and preemptively deny qualified workers a fair chance at a job they need,” Brown said.

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As the labor market stalls, jobless claims have risen to almost half a million. This is the second week in which unemployment claims have risen.

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The Huffington Post reports:

It was the second straight week in which claims rose. Wall Street analysts had been looking for a dip to 410,000.

Excluding one week in early August, claims have held above 400,000 since early April. A Labor Department official said there was no discernible effect from Hurricane Irene or other storms in the national reading.

Read More At The Huffington Post

Start Gallery

WASHINGTON (AP) — Confronting an economy in peril, President Barack Obama unveiled a $450 billion plan Thursday night to boost jobs and put cash in the pockets of dispirited Americans, challenging Republican skeptics to embrace an approach heavy on the tax cuts they traditionally love. With millions of voters watching and ever skeptical of Washington, Obama told Congress, “Let’s meet the moment.”

The newest and boldest element of Obama’s plan would slash the Social Security payroll tax both for tens of millions of workers and for employers, too. For individuals, that tax has been shaved from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent for this year but is to go back up again without action by Congress. Obama wants to keep it and deepen the cut to 3.1 percent for workers.

Read The Text Of The Obama Jobs Speech Here

“This plan is the right thing to do right now,” Obama said after a divided body rose in warm unison to greet him. “You should pass it. And I intend to take that message to every corner of this country.”

In his televised address to Congress, Obama sought to provide a jolt for the economy, still staggering on his watch, and for his own standing at one of the lowest marks of his presidency. He put forth a jobs plan that he hopes can get bipartisan support and spur hiring in a nation where 14 million people remain out of work and the jobless rate is stuck at 9.1 percent. Public confidence in his stewardship of the economy is eroding.

Obama did not venture an estimate as to how many jobs his plan would create. He promised repeatedly that his plan would be paid for, but never said how, pledging to release those details soon.

Under soaring expectations for results, Obama sought to put himself on the side of voters who he said could not care less about the political consequences of his speech.

“The question is whether, in the face of an ongoing national crisis, we can stop the political circus and actually do something to help the economy,” Obama said.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released its most recent unemployment data. We knew that Black folks (especially men) would be at the bottom, we just didn’t know how bad. Well, it turns out that the numbers exceed even the most pessimistic predictions.

Black unemployment shot up like a rocket during the month of August, rising from an abysmal 15.9 percent to an even more shocking 16.7 percent. Much of the increase was driven by Black male unemployment, which rose from 17 to 18 percent. Black female unemployment remained steady at 13.4 percent, and Black teen unemployment experienced a dramatic increase from 39.2 percent to an astounding 46.5 percent.

If you were white in America, the month of August was pretty good. White unemployment remained consistent across the board, and went down for white males. Overall white unemployment dropped from 8.1 percent to 8 percent. White males saw a decline from 7.9 to 7.7 percent. White women and teens saw their unemployment rates remain unchanged at 7 percent and 23 percent, respectively.

The Obama Administration has a serious problem. Every time the numbers show that chronic Black unemployment has reached crisis levels, I think back to the Obama Administration’s delusional assertion three years ago that a “rising tide will lift all boats” (that targeted economic policy would not work as well as a general policy that helps everyone – after all, he is “everyone’s president”).  Well, I’m here to report to the Obama Administration: The tide not only missed our boat, but Black folks are sinking to the bottom of the economic ocean.

One of the most telling signs of racial inequality in America is the fact that African Americans are not only subjected to the very worst economic circumstances in the country, but we are also not allowed to be upset about it. Middle class Tea Partiers can gather in Washington to complain about health care, wealthy white folks can get upset about a tiny spike in taxes, and white Americans can remain justifiably outraged over a measly eight percent rate of unemployment. But when African Americans say a word about widespread and virtually unprecedented economic suffering in the presence of a Black president, we are referred to as Uncle Toms or told that we are demanding too much.

Perhaps it’s time to grow up and get a political education. Instead of being pacified by a beautiful statue of Dr. King or appearances by President Obama on the Tom Joyner Morning Show, it’s time that we force all of Washington (including Obama) to have their “Beyonce Moment” : Say my name. Let me know that you are with me in my suffering. Don’t force my people to live in the socioeconomic basement in painful silence so as not to offend a powerful Black man from an Ivy League University. The call to consciousness within Black America is not a matter of attacking or hating President Obama. It’s a matter of getting the Obama Administration to admit that they were wrong.

Like wide-eyed children, we trusted the Obama Administration and their Wall Street-wired economic advisers to incorporate policies that would make life better for our people, in addition to the rest of America. Well, the evidence is clear and the verdict is in: Those policies have not worked. The president would be wise to let go of the charade, admit that mistakes were made and profess that it’s time to take the country in another direction.

Additionally, African American leaders who continue to work to elevate the Obama campaign without demanding true reciprocity in exchange for the Black vote risk being perceived as political slum lords. Again, this is not to say that one does not have the right to aggressively campaign for President Obama. But it’s another thing to present the president as “the really cool brother you should vote for.” Instead, addressing administration policies and gauging their sensitivity to our community’s needs should be mandatory before simply pulling out the “Black man card” for the next election.

One of the most painful challenges of demanding our rights from Washington is that we are forced to confront the possibility that the Black man we loved so much may not have our best interests at heart. Also, with every mention of Black unemployment comes the predatory glance of blood-sucking Republicans, who are waiting with open arms. Finally, there is the uncomfortable reality that we are harming the progress of one of the greatest Black men in American history. To have Obama in the middle of the government that has played a powerful role in building this cesspool of political neglect is like a slave’s best friend guarding the master’s house on the night of the revolt.

In spite of our respect for Obama, there must come a time when our love for Black folks must supersede any quest for personal or political gain. There must be a time when empty excuses  go out the window, and where African Americans engage in individual and collective action that will get us out of this hell hole. Times have gotten too critical for us to worry about protecting Barack Obama or anyone else – I just want to protect our people.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World Coalition.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here. Follow us on Facebook by visiting this link.

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Despite a slumping economy, states like North Dakota seem to be doing fairly well. With an unemployment rate slightly over 3 percent and the highest job growth in the nation, some say North Dakota and its neighboring states (Montana, South Dakota and Minnesota), are the best options for African-Americans looking to find work.

But with unemployment as high as it is, Black folks may need to begin looking for work in places they never would have considered. Meanwhile, venturing outside of our comfort zone to make a new life for ourselves is not a brand new concept. African-Americans, like any other group, travel to where the opportunities take them.

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Black Unemployment News Coverage

WASHINGTON — The economy weak and the public seething, President Barack Obama is expected to propose $300 billion in tax cuts and federal spending Thursday night to get Americans working again. Republicans offered Tuesday to compromise with him on jobs – but also assailed his plans in advance of his prime-time speech.

In effect, Obama will be hitting cleanup on a shortened holiday week, with Republican White House contender Mitt Romney releasing his jobs proposals on Tuesday and front-running Texas Gov. Rick Perry hoping to join his presidential rivals Wednesday evening on a nationally televised debate stage for the first time.

Lawmakers began returning to the Capitol to tackle legislation on jobs and federal deficits in an unforgiving political season spiced by the 2012 presidential campaign.

Adding to the mix: A bipartisan congressional committee is slated to hold its first public meeting on Thursday as it embarks on a quest for deficit cuts of $1.2 trillion or more over a decade. If there is no agreement, automatic spending cuts will take effect, a prospect that lawmakers in both parties have said they would like to avoid.

According to people familiar with the White House deliberations, two of the biggest measures in the president’s proposals for 2012 are expected to be a one-year extension of a payroll tax cut for workers and an extension of expiring jobless benefits. Together those two would total about $170 billion.

The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plan was still being finalized and some proposals could still be subject to change.

The White House is also considering a tax credit for businesses that hire the unemployed. That could cost about $30 billion. Obama has also called for public works projects, such as school construction. Advocates of that plan have called for spending of $50 billion, but the White House proposal is expected to be smaller.

Obama also is expected to continue for one year a tax break for businesses that allows them to deduct the full value of new equipment. The president and Congress negotiated that provision into law for 2011 last December.

Though Obama has said he intends to propose long-term deficit reduction measures to cover the up-front costs of his jobs plan, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama would not lay out a wholesale deficit reduction plan in his speech.

In a letter to Obama on Tuesday, House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor outlined possible areas for compromise on jobs legislation. Separately, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said last month’s unemployment report – it showed a painfully persistent 9.1 percent jobless rate and no net gain of jobs – “should be a wakeup call to every member of Congress.”

Whatever the potential for eventual compromise on the issue at the top of the public’s agenda, the finger pointing was already under way.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell predicted Obama’s Thursday night speech to Congress on jobs legislation would include “more of the same failed approach that’s only made things worse over the past few years.”

He spoke a few moments after Reid had said that Republicans, rather than working with Democrats to create job-creating legislation, insist on “reckless cuts to hurt our economic recovery.”

The Senate returned to Capitol Hill on Tuesday after an August recess. The House comes back Wednesday.

Left largely ignored in the latest political remarks was a remarkable run of late-summer polls that show the country souring on Obama’s performance – and on Congress’ even more.

A Washington Post-ABC survey released Monday found that 60 percent of those polled expressed disapproval of Obama’s handling of the economy. Thirty-four percent said his proposals were making the situation worse and 47 percent said they were having no effect – dismal soundings for a president headed into a re-election campaign.

Only 19 percent said the country was moving in the right direction.

Not that Republicans, or Congress as a whole, are in good odor with the voters.

The Post-ABC News poll found only 28 percent approval for the job the Republicans are doing, and 68 percent disapproval.

An AP-GfK survey last month put overall support for Congress at 12 percent – the lowest level ever in the survey’s history.

The tea party has also been hurt, according to the same poll, which found that 32 percent of those surveyed have a deeply unfavorable impression of the movement that helped give Republicans control of the House in the 2010 elections.

In their letter to Obama, Boehner and Cantor wrote that neither party would win all it wants from the coming debate over jobs legislation. “We should not approach this as an all-or-nothing situation,” they said, striking a conciliatory tone in the first moments of a post-summer session of Congress.

But it was unclear what, if any, concessions they were prepared to make.

“We are not opposed to initiatives to repair and improve infrastructure,” they wrote, saying they favor repeal of a current requirement for 10 percent of highway funds to be spent on items such as museums or bike trails.

But they did not say they would support any additional funding for construction, and aides declined to provide any additional details.

Boehner and Cantor also said the House was ready to pass free trade agreements negotiated with Colombia, Panama and South Korea measures, which they noted the White House estimates would create 250,000 jobs.

The administration wants the trade deals approved simultaneously with legislation to provide job training and other benefits for workers who lose their job to imports, and the letter from the Republican leaders promised they would consider such measures rather than pledging to pass them.

There was maneuvering on another front during the day.

Democrats won approval in a Senate subcommittee for legislation adding $6 billion in spending to pay victims of Hurricane Irene and past disasters dating to Hurricane Katrina, including $4 billion for the 2012 budget year.

Republicans did not object, even though the legislation did not include other cuts to offset the cost and the new spending would exceed levels permitted in a sweeping compromise passed last month to cut future deficits by nearly $1 trillion over a decade.

It is unclear when the measure will come to the Senate floor, and whether Republicans will attempt to offset the increase when it does.

In comments in recent weeks, Cantor has said any increase must be offset.

For his part, Romney chose Nevada, where unemployment stood at a nationwide high of 12.9 percent in July, for a campaign speech in which he outlined numerous proposals to create jobs.

He called for lowering the maximum corporate tax from 35 percent to 25 percent and abolishing the tax on dividends and investment earnings for anyone making less than $200,000 a year. He also said any new government regulation that raises costs for businesses should be accompanied by other steps to reduce the burden by an identical amount.

“America should be a job machine, jobs being created all the time,” he said.

The elements Romney outlined – lower taxes and less regulation – are the same as those advanced by Republicans in Congress.

McConnell said Republicans “will spend the next weeks and months arguing in favor of a robust legislation agenda aimed at blocking or repealing some of the most pernicious rules and regulations.”

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WASHINGTON  – Employers stopped adding jobs in August, an alarming setback for an economy that has struggled to grow and might be at risk of another recession.

The government also reported that the unemployment rate remained at 9.1 percent. It was the weakest jobs report since September 2010.

Stocks tumbled on the news. The Dow Jones industrial average sank 245 points soon after trading began.

A strike by 45,000 Verizon workers lowered the job totals. Those workers are now back on the job.

The weakness in employment was underscored by revisions to the jobs data for June and July. Collectively, those figures were lowered to show 58,000 fewer jobs added. The downward revisions were all in government jobs.

The average work week also declined and hourly earnings fell by 3 cents to $23.09.

Weak growth, Standard & Poor’s downgrade of long-term U.S. debt in early August and a sell-off on Wall Street likely kept some businesses from hiring.

With job creation stalled and wages declining, consumers won’t see much gain in incomes. That will limit their ability to spend, which undercuts growth. Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of the economy.

“The stagnation in US payroll employment is an ominous sign,” said Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics. “The broad message is that even if the US economy doesn’t start to contract again, any expansion is going to be very, very modest and fall well short of what would be needed to drive the still elevated unemployment rate lower.”

The economy needs to add roughly 250,000 jobs a month to rapidly bring down the unemployment rate, which has been above 9 percent in all but two months since May 2009.

In August, the private sector added 17,000 jobs, the fewest since February 2010. That compares with 156,000 in July and 75,000 in June.

Hiring fell across many different sectors. Manufacturers cut 3,000 jobs, its first decline since October 2010. Construction companies, retailers, and transportation firms also cut workers.

The health care industry added 30,000 jobs last month.

The economy expanded at an annual pace of only 0.7 percent in the first six months of the year. That was the slowest six months of growth since the recession officially ended in June 2009.

In August, consumer confidence fell to its lowest level since April 2009, according to the Conference Board.

Most economists forecast that growth may improve to about a 2 percent annual rate in the July-September quarter. But that’s not fast enough to generate many jobs.

The Obama administration has estimated that unemployment will average about 9 percent next year, when President Barack Obama will run for re-election. The rate was 7.8 percent when Obama took office.

The White House Office of Management and Budget projects overall growth of only 1.7 percent this year.

Next week, Obama will deliver a rare address to a joint session of Congress to introduce a plan for creating jobs and boosting economic growth.

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WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will lay out his jobs plan in a prime television time address next week to a rare joint session of Congress, the White House said Wednesday.

Obama sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid asking to speak to both chambers on Sept. 7 at 8 p.m (midnight GMT).

With the U.S. economy on the rails and opposition Republicans on the attack, the much-anticipated speech is expected to include proposals for economic growth such as tax credits and infrastructure spending along with calls for shrinking the deficit.

WATCH MSNBC COVERAGE OF THE OBAMA SPEECH ON JOBS:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

In his letter to the lawmakers, Obama said Washington must answer the call to put aside politics and do what’s best for the country to grow the economy and create jobs.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said that Obama decided to seek to speak to a joint session of Congress because congressional action is needed to carry out his plans. Lawmakers will have just returned from their annual summer recess.

“He believes the venue is appropriate because of the actions that need to be taken,” Carney said.

The speech will conflict with a Republican presidential debate happening at the same time in California, but Carney said that was not a consideration. “It is coincidental,” he said.

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President Obama said during a Tuesday radio show that hiring discrimination against the jobless “makes absolutely no sense” and that he supports legislation to ban the practice.

Sybil Wilkes, a co-host of the “Tom Joyner Morning Show,” asked the president about long-term unemployment and businesses that tell applicants, “If you’re unemployed, we don’t want to hear from you.”

Obama noted that the long-term unemployed have a tougher time landing jobs and said a stronger overall economy would make employers less choosy. “But we have seen instances in which employers are explicitly saying we don’t want to take a look at folks who’ve been unemployed,” the president said.

“Well, that makes absolutely no sense, and I know there’s legislation that I’m supportive of that says you cannot discriminate against folks because they’ve been unemployed, particularly when you’ve seen so many folks who, through no fault of their own, ended up being laid off because of the difficulty of this recession.”

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WASHINGTON — Seeking a jolt for a wilting economy, President Barack Obama will give a major speech in early September to unveil new ideas for speeding up job growth and helping the struggling poor and middle class, a senior administration official told The Associated Press.

The president’s plan is likely to contain tax cuts, jobs-boosting infrastructure ideas and steps that would specifically help the long-term unemployed. The official emphasized that all of Obama’s proposals would be fresh ones, not a rehash of plans he has pitched for many weeks and still supports, including his “infrastructure bank” idea to finance construction jobs.

On a significant and related front, Obama will also present a specific plan to cut the suffocating long-term national debt and to pay for the cost of his new short-term economic ideas.

His debt proposal will be bigger than the $1.5 trillion package that a new “supercommittee” of Congress must come up with by late November.

The president will then spend his fall publicly pressing Congress to take action as the economic debate roars into its next phase. Both the economic ideas and the plan to pay for them will be part of Obama’s speech, although the address will focus mainly on the jobs components.

The president’s speech is expected right after the Sept. 5 Labor Day holiday.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because Obama has not yet disclosed his plans.

No final decisions on the economic package have been made.

Seeking re-election in a dispiriting economic time for the nation, Obama’s rollout plan allows him to come into September swinging after one of the roughest periods of his presidency.

Obama has hinted about new economic ideas for days as the Republican presidential contenders take whacks as his record. Obama’s economic team has been hashing out the new package since he and Congress struck a last-minute debt deal in late July to prevent a debilitating government default.

Obama has been rumbling through the Midwest all week, lobbying the locals along the way to help him pressure a divided Congress into working with him. He has one day of his bus tour left on Wednesday before returning to Washington and heading on a vacation with his family.

Come September, Obama will try to reframe the jobs debate and press lawmakers to act on his ideas. And, since he is almost sure to face political opposition from Republicans, particularly the leadership of the House, he is already preparing to lobby the American public for support if Congress tosses his ideas aside.

As the leader of the country, Obama is under unparalleled pressure to start showing more economic progress. His own job is expected to depend on it.

Nearly 14 million people are unemployed. Many millions more have given up looking for jobs or haven’t found a way to move from part-time to full-time work.

The administration official would not offer details about the tax cuts Obama is likely to propose for the middle class.

They are expected to be separate from the extension of the payroll tax cut for employees that Obama has lobbied for by the day. Obama also has promoted a familiar list of other ideas, including patent reform and three major trade deals. And he has pushed for longer benefits for the chronically unemployed.

As for debt reduction, Obama is trying to have some say over the highly influential committee charged with recommending major changes fast.

That 12-person panel of Republicans and Democrats will start work in September on coming up with – by Nov. 23 – $1.5 trillion in savings over the coming decades. If not, or if Congress fails to approve the committee’s plans, automatic spending cuts that both parties oppose would kick in across the government.

Obama’s plan will be bigger. By how much isn’t clear, but he has already envisioned $4 trillion in cuts over a slightly longer period of time.

He was in serious talks with House Speaker John Boehner during the recent, wrenching talks over a similar big package, between $3 trillion and $4 trillion. And those talks had included the potential for economic help like the payroll tax cut extension; Obama’s new plan is likely to follow similar form.

Without offering any specifics about his plans, the president has been telling audiences he will get detailed in September, and then fight it out.

“My attitude is, get it done,” he said in one Iowa town hall on Monday. “And if they (lawmakers) don’t get it done, then we’ll be running against a Congress that’s not doing anything for the American people, and the choice will be very stark and will be very clear.”

The economy has rebounded from a deep recession Obama inherited, but growth and hopes have stalled.

The unemployment rate is at 9.1 percent. No president in recent history has been re-elected with a jobless rate nearly that high.

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Obama planned to tour a Holland, Mich., factory that makes advanced batteries for alternative-fuel vehicles such as hybrids or all-electrics.

In Michigan, where the unemployment rate was 10.5 percent in June, higher than the national rate, Obama was expected to talk about the benefits of spending money on producing such clean-energy technologies as advanced batteries: jobs and reduced consumption of foreign oil.

He calls them “jobs of the future” and says the U.S. should lead the way in developing energy sources that pollute less.

Johnson Controls Inc., the energy company that owns the plant that was welcoming Obama, has received a $3 million federal grant and expects to create 150 jobs at facilities in Michigan and Wisconsin, White House energy adviser Heather Zichal said.

The president also was to discuss how the clean-energy push can help automakers meet new fuel economy standards for cars and trucks.

Obama won Michigan in the 2008 presidential election and the economically battered state is crucial to his re-election hopes in 2012.

After wrapping up his second visit to Holland, Mich., in 13 months, Obama was bound for a pair of $35,800-a-ticket Manhattan fundraisers: a reception with about 15 people at the Ritz-Carlton hotel and a dinner for 50 at a private home, a Democratic official said.

Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour and movie producer Harvey Weinstein are the dinner hosts. The reception host is Gary Hirshberg, chief executive officer of organic yogurt maker Stonyfield Farm.

The $35,800 admission price is the legal maximum per person. Obama’s campaign keeps $5,000 and the Democratic National Committee pockets the remaining $30,800.

Obama’s campaign canceled 10 fundraisers around the country last month so the president could stay in Washington to help negotiate a deal allowing the government to borrow more money and avoid defaulting on its bills.

With a deal now in place, Obama is trying to make up fundraising ground, although campaign officials have acknowledged that they won’t bring in as much money this summer as the $86 million that was raised in the spring and shared with the DNC.

Thursday’s fundraiser will be Obama’s fifth campaign event since he signed the debt-ceiling bill into law on Aug. 2. It’s also his third donor event of the week.

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Not Good! Unemployment Rises In Nearly All US Cities

Today the economy has 5 percent fewer jobs, and the unemployment rate has almost doubled since the onset of the last recession.

The NewYorkTimes.com reports:

“It would be disastrous if we entered into a recession at this stage, given that we haven’t yet made up for the last recession,” said Conrad DeQuadros, senior economist at RDQ Economics.

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‎

A job fair and town hall at Cleveland State University in Ohio will be the first part of the CBC’s iniative.

TheGrio.com reports:

“Recently, the CBC Members unanimously introduced the Congressional Black Caucus ‘For the People’ Jobs Initiative Resolution (H. Res. 348) to encourage the House of Representatives to immediately consider and pass critical jobs legislation to address the growing jobs crisis throughout America,” CBC Chairman Chairman Emanuel Cleaver, II said on Friday, in response to the release of July jobs numbers. “We want to get 10,000 people hired. There is no time to waste. The time to act is now, and we are on the move.”

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