Like the college professor he is, Dr. Bernard Anderson, member of the National Urban League President’s Council of Economic Advisors, came to this weeks "Putting America Back To Work" forum with three points he wanted those gathered to take away with them.
- The depth and breadth of the economic crisis has worsened, increasing racial disparities, and threatening to wipe out gains made towards reducing those disparities in the 1990s.
- The unemployment crisis reflects a structural change in our economy. The link between job creation and economy growth has been weakened. Economic growth no longer results in job creation. Thus in recent recessions we have experienced the phenomenon of "jobless recovery."
- Direct public job creation is imperative to economic recovery.
All three points could serve as a starting point for discussion, and the relationships between them aren’t hard to understand. But Dr. Anderson’s second point stuck with me, as I left the forum on Tuesday, as the first point seemed to be a symptom of the second, and the third point was necessitated by the second:
