By Lee A. Daniels
The nation’s metropolitan areas, overwhelmingly the source of its domestic economic power and jobs, are in for a decade of economic uncertainty – and very likely increased social tension – as they try to recover from the Great Recession, according to a new report from the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

By Lee A. Daniels
The gloomy federal jobs report for May has brought to the forefront again all the questions – and fears – about the economy and the jobs crisis that six months ago were pushed into the deep background by the compromise on unemployment benefits between President Obama and the Republicans in Congress.

By George E. Curry
In the 1960s, we had the War on Poverty. In 2011, we’re now seeing a War on People Who Live in Poverty.

By Tarice L.S. Gray
The beginning of the month may have felt like April Fool’s Day to a significant segment of America’s labor population. That’s when reports started pouring in about the new jobless rate and rise in job creation.

By George E. Curry
Democrats control two of the three institutions that determine federal priorities and laws, but you would never know that by the way Tea Party-inspired Republicans in the House steamrolled President Obama and Senate Democrats in the latest budget showdown designed to cut $38.5 billion from the fiscal year that is already half over.

By Doug Miller
Black financial services customers all too often are part of a separate-but-unequal financial services economy.

By Lee A. Daniels
Have I become hard of hearing? Or is it true that the paeans to the middle class – their being exalted as “the backbone” of America – have disappeared from the political arena?

By Doug Miller
Bank branches responded to the Great Recession by checking out of low- and middle-income neighborhoods and opening in wealthier ones, according to figures from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) and community advocacy organizations—a shifting of resources that once again has left minorities holding the bag.

By Lee A. Daniels
African Americans as a group continue to be battered worse than any other Americans by the nation’s three-year-long-and-counting economic crisis. In both stand-alone and comparative terms, from the top to the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, they’ve suffered a severe loss of the little wealth they possessed and have almost no protection against a future economic shock.

By Lee A. Daniels
Black America has pneumonia, and the fact that it’s winter has nothing to do with it.