Is the Recession Going To Kill Black America, Once and for all?

President Obama has signed the new Stimulus Plan, yet, across the world the news is not good, the markets fall across Asia and Europe. Every major market retreated, with the previous day's news that Japan's recession deepened amid the global economic downturn still weighing on investors. Banks and insurers were in the spotlight amid concerns that there was more pain ahead for the global financial industry. In Britain overnight, fears mounted that Lloyds Banking Group might be nationalized after the firm on Friday reported larger-than-expected losses at recently acquired Scottish bank HBOS. Meanwhile, the cost of protecting against defaults on bank debt in Japan and elsewhere rose, analysts said. With about 3.6 million jobs lost since the recession officially began just over a year ago, the reeling job market is not hitting all demographic groups equally. Among blacks, 16-years-old and up, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate reached 12.6% in January, compared with the national rate of 7.6%, according to the Labor Department. In fact, the black unemployment rate has been above 7.6% since 2001. "For African Americans when the recession began they were already at an unemployment rate that would be considered a recession for the rest of the economy," said John Schmitt, senior economist with the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "African Americans and Latinos start a recession already in a recession, and then things get worse." Why are some groups having a tougher time with jobs? Racial minorities are always hit harder in recession, and that the trend is tied, in part, to education. OK, let's talk about it today on the slugfest.