Cohen: New Report Shows Congress Needs to Focus More on African-American Communities

[WASHINGTON, DC] – A new report should remind Congress that it needs to focus more on improving economic and other outcomes for African-American communities, including those in Tennessee like Memphis, Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) said on Tuesday. The report, issued by the Congressional Joint Economic Committee (JEC) today and available here, found that both the unemployment rate (11.4%) and poverty rate (28.9%) of African-Americans in Tennessee more than doubled that of Caucasians living in the state. At just $32,100 per year, the median household income for Tennessee African-Americans is roughly $15,000 lower than the median for Tennessee’s Caucasian households.

“While Memphians struggling to find jobs and make ends meet won’t be surprised, this new Congressional report snaps into focus the stark reality of just how much work we still must do to bridge the economic gap between African-Americans and Caucasians,” said Congressman Cohen. “African Americans are twice as likely to live in poverty and to be unemployed, and black men are six times as likely as white men to be incarcerated. These problems are real, they are significant, and Congress cannot ignore them any further. It is time for us to act, and I will continue working to ensure our criminal justice system treats every American—black or white— fairly and to help Memphians find good-paying jobs so they can experience the same recovery the rest of the nation is seeing.”

Nationwide, the JEC report also found that:

• At 10.1 percent, the current unemployment rate for black Americans is more than double the rate of 4.7 percent for white Americans,
• Black Americans currently face an unemployment rate that is almost a full percentage point higher than the highest unemployment rate experienced by white Americans during the recent recession,
• The median income of African American households is just $34,600—nearly $24,000 less than the median income of white households,
• The median net worth of white households is 13 times the level for black households, and
• Black Americans are almost three times more likely to live in poverty than white Americans.