[Steelfish]

Black women were hit hard with job losses in economic crisis

By Courtland Milloy, Sunday, December 11

After the health-care company where Linda Evans worked relocated outside the Washington area, she spent two years searching for another job. But nothing panned out.

“I felt like a loser,” said Evans, who lives in the District.

No doubt the nation’s economic woes have made a lot of people feel that way. But women— especially black women like Evans — were among the hardest hit. And the so-called recovery has been even worse for them.

According to a recent study by the National Women’s Law Center, black women have lost more jobs during the recovery — 258,000 — than they did during the recession — 233,000. Put another way, black women represented 12.5 percent of all women workers in June 2009. But between then and this June, black women lost 42.2 percent of jobs lost by women overall.

“For women as a whole, and particularly black women, cuts in public sector employment have been devastating,” said Joan Entmacher, vice president for family economic security at the National Women’s Law Center in Washington. “When it comes to job growth in the private sector, women are also doing less well than men. Whether employers feel it is more important to put men back to work first, we just can’t say at this point.”

Evans, who is in her 50s, didn’t let discouragement keep her down. Out of the pain came an epiphany: Maybe it was time to forget about getting a job like the one she had, and use some long-neglected talents to reinvent herself.

“I remembered how much I liked making jewelry, singing and writing songs,” she said. “I began feeling hopeful that somehow I was going to make it.”

While the nation’s overall unemployment rate declined from 9.0 to 8.6 last month, the unemployment rate for black women increased from 12.6 to 12.9, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Worse, more than 150,000 black women gave up looking for work last month. Counted out of the job market, they were categorized as simply “discouraged workers.”

In a sad irony, the Obama administration’s first cheery news about a drop in the nation’s unemployment rate had resulted largely from the broken spirits of black women.

“The jobs report was like an onion: Peel back the layers and you start crying,” said Donna Addkison, president and chief executive of Wider Opportunities for Women.

According to a recent study by WOW, about 42 percent of women — including 62 percent of African American women and 66 percent of Hispanic women — do not have enough income to pay for basic household expenses.

“We’re not just talking about households moving from crisis to catastrophe,” Addkison said. “The deprivation experienced by children in these homes means the loss of jobs and income will have a multi-generational ripple effect.”

To his credit, however, President Obama recently proposed a jobs bill that would surely help a lot of women. It includes funds for rehiring teachers and first responders, jobs for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, jobs repairing bridges, roads and schools, jobs refurbishing thousands of foreclosed homes and businesses, and job training for low-income youths and adults.

Unfortunately, only bits and pieces of the bill have won congressional support.

Evans wasn’t about to sit around and wait for Congress to act.

“I was raised with a good work ethic and have always had one kind of job or another since I was 14,” she said. “When I lost my job as a hospice-care worker, it felt terrible. I didn’t want to be on unemployment or food stamps. I always saw myself as a giver and not a taker.”

So she took up the songwriting that she never had time for while doing hospice care, pulled together some musician friends and helped form a 10-piece group called Copper Rose and Bones.

And there they were Saturday night, performing at the B Spot juice and music bar at 11th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue SE. “Stay strong, carry on,” Evans sang. “Hold on to your dreams.”

With donations from the audience, along with the sale of her custom-made feather earrings, Evans felt confident that she’d make ends meet — at least for the remainder of the month.

“It’s still a struggle but I’m pushing on,” Evans said, sounding anything but dis­couraged.

[Yosemitest]

Only idiots and the evil vote for Obama.
It's not our fault that DEMOCRATS raided the Social Secureity Trust Fund.
Let's remember ...

Oh, and for the record...


Not ALL are to blame for the empty lock box.

It's the Democrats Communists.

Let's take a deeper look.

Obama: "I Don't Want the Folks who Created the Mess to do a lot of Talking" "

Okay, then the DEMOCRATS need to shut up!!!




Lets review:
Who was it that cut future funding for Medicare by $575 billion?

...the president and the Democratic Party successfully bamboozle voters... The 2012 election could turn on this falsehood.
The truth is that the Obama health law reduces future funding for Medicare by $575 billion over the next 10 years ...

Mr. Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius frequently make that false claim.
Indeed, even Medicare's mailings to seniors repeat the claim that reducing spending on Medicare will make it more financially secure for future years.
The fact is that Mr. Obama's law raids Medicare.

Who was it that moved Medicare Trust Funds out of the "trust box" and into the General Revenue, replacing them with Government I.O.U.s?
"In early 1968 President Lyndon Johnson [DEMOCRAT] made a change in the budget presentation by including Social Security and all other trust funds in a"unified budget." "

Who was it that expanded Medicare and Medicaid to cover many, many more people than it was originally designed to cover?

The History of Medicare

In 1965, the Social Security Act established both Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare was a responsibility of the Social Security Administration (SSA), while Federal assistance to the State Medicaid programs was administered by the Social and Rehabilitation Service (SRS). SSA and SRS were agencies in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). In 1977, the Health Care Financing Administration was created under HEW to effectively coordinate Medicare and Medicaid. In 1980 HEW was divided into the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The first U.S. President to propose a prepaid health insurance plan was Harry S. Truman [DEMOCRAT]. On November 19, 1945, in a special message to Congress, President Truman outlined a comprehensive, prepaid medical insurance plan for all people through the Social Security system. The plan included doctors and hospitals, and nursing, laboratory, and dental services; it was dubbed "National Health Insurance." Furthermore, medical insurance benefits for needy people were to be financed from Federal revenues.

Over the years, lawmakers narrowed the field of health insurance recipients largely to social security beneficiaries. A national survey found that only 56 percent of those 65 years of age or older had health insurance. President John F. Kennedy [DEMOCRAT] pressed legislators for health insurance for the aged. However, it wasn't until 1965 that President Lyndon B. Johnson signed H.R. 6675 (The Social Security Act of 1965; PL 89-97) to provide health insurance for the elderly and the poor.

On July 30, 1965, President Johnson signed the Medicare and Medicaid Bill (Title XVIII and Title XIX of the Social Security Act) in Independence, Missouri in the presence of former President Truman, who received the first Medicare card at the ceremony; Lady Bird Johnson, Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, and Mrs. Truman also were present. President Johnson remarked: "We marvel not simply at the passage of this Bill but that it took so many years to pass it."

Medicare extended health coverage to almost all Americans aged 65 or older. About 19 million beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare in the first year of the program. Medicaid provided access to health care services for certain low-income persons and expanded the existing Federal-State welfare structure that assisted the poor.

The 1972 Social Security Amendments expanded Medicare to provide coverage to two additional high risk groups disabled persons receiving cash benefits for 24 months under the social security program and persons suffering from end-stage renal disease.

...(continued at link)
So Democrats,
YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE
FOR INSURING THE FAILURE
OF THE MEDICARE/MEDICAID PROGRAM,
and now YOU DEMOCRATS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE INTENTIONAL DESTRUCTION OF THE U.S.A. ECONOMY!!!

So DEMOCRATS ... SHUT UP!!!

You have no integrity!!!

Sen Mark Kirk's statement Thursday, Dec 1, 2011 ...

"There are 55 million Social Security beneficiaries that will see little or no extra cash from this 2012 tax holiday; instead, the dedicated payroll contributions meant to pay for future benefits are being diverted from the Trust Fund
and replaced with Treasury debt that does not even have a AAA credit rating.
Social Security was designed to be independent and free from the danger of Congressional manipulation,
and maintaining the firewall between the Social Security Trust Fund and general government funding is the best way to maintain the solvency of this important program.
Neither bill protects the Social Security Trust Fund
so I voted no. "