By Lee A. Daniels

The deal between President Obama and the Congressional Republicans has been struck. Whether it will hold amid fierce criticism from some Democratic Party activists and liberal pundits and some Democrats in Congress remains to be seen.

But what is worth also considering along with matters of political ideology, political principle and political advantage is the series of questions that shadow the very issue – the crisis of high mass unemployment – which ignited this latest controversy of President Obama’s tenure.

The agreement, forged a week after the previous unemployment benefits extension expired, would rescue as many as 3 million jobless workers who were due to be cut off from the government aid by January 31. The deal, which includes other provisions intended to help middle-income workers and families, would provide 13 more months of jobless funds for the long-term unemployed – those out of work  and unable to find a new job for longer than 26 weeks.

The severity of the economic crisis which began three years ago in December 2007 has pushed Congress to extend the emergency unemployment benefits aid program four previous times. If this new agreement stands,  it means that at its end some jobless workers will have gotten unemployment aid for three full years.

Currently, 41.9 percent, or 6.3 million workers, of the 15.1 million Americans have been out of work for more than 26 weeks – a post-World War Two record. Even more worrisome, given the weakness of job growth, their ranks are virtually certain to increase for at least another year. Now, with the official unemployment rate having risen slightly in November to 9.8 percent, there are nearly five unemployed workers searching for every job that’s available. Further, the job growth that is occurring monthly has yet to reach the level where it would match even the number of new entrants into the workforce, let alone offer enough new jobs to pare the ranks of the current jobless.

This disequilibrium isn’t nearly as bad as in early to mid 2009, when monthly job losses reached more than 700,000.

But the damage done then shattered the livelihoods of millions of workers, and the lack of jobs for them has pushed many – albeit the unemployment benefits, which average little more than $300 a week – to the brink of hopelessness and destitution.

That is the brink the controversial agreement Obama and the Republican leadership forged would cast a safety net in front of. The blazing fire the agreement’s other provisions has provoked has obscured the alarming questions raised by the phenomenon of mass long-term unemployment.

For those who have been swept into this predicament, the issues, as the Times article poignantly describes are basic: How will I survive? How can I pay mortgage or rent, and get food and other necessities? The painful choices made by those who’ve been out of work for months upon months, and the increasing number of reports which have studied their plight bear witness to a developing economic and social crisis that will persist for years to come.

However, the crisis of mass high unemployment America is experiencing isn’t a new modern phenomenon. What is new is that it now involves millions of whites. In fact, black Americans have endured a worse unemployment crisis that included high mass long-term unemployment since the early 1970s.

Federal labor department statistics show that on an annualized basis the black unemployment rate was greater than 10 percent in 30 of the last 37 years.

Even now, as mass unemployment continues despite an economic recovery appearing to take hold, the unemployment rate for black Americans (and Latino Americans as well) in every category from high school dropouts to college graduates is soaring far above that of whites. In November the overall unemployment rate for whites was 8.9 percent; for Latinos, 13.2 percent; and for blacks, 16 percent – a ratio that has held more or less steady throughout the three-year crisis of joblessness. That means that the racial disparity in “regular” pool of jobless workers is being repeated among the long-term unemployed as well, a circumstance which is compounding the phenomenon’s long-term danger.