Press Releases

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                  April 5, 2013

Contact: Ayofemi Kirby
(202) 226-6715
Ayofemi.Kirby@mail.house.gov

CBC Chair Marcia L. Fudge’s Statement on the March Jobs Report

 Congressional Black Caucus Chair Marcia L. Fudge released the following statement today after the Department of Labor released the March 2013 jobs report:

“In March, the African American unemployment rate fell .5 percent to 13.3 percent, the most it has fallen in six months. However, that number remains at nearly double the national rate with 2.4 million African Americans still out of work.

“While the private sector has steadily added jobs for 37 months, the public sector, where many African Americans are employed, continued to lose them. Last month 385,000 more requests for unemployment benefits were made and by year’s end, sequestration threatens to put an additional 750,000 people with full time jobs out of work. If Congress cannot come to an agreement on the best way to address this country’s fiscal health, these statistics show our economic future remains in jeopardy.

“The Congressional Black Caucus has proposed practical solutions that would replace the sequester and reduce our deficit by investing in our economy and protecting programs that are critical to our communities. We will also be working with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies on ways to decrease the employment gap between African Americans and other populations in communities across the country. Our proposals show austerity is not the answer to helping millions of unemployed Americans find jobs or to put this country’s fiscal future back on track.

“It’s time for Members of Congress and the President to work together on ways that create economic opportunity for all Americans and to prevent this country from falling into further economic distress. We should be working to solve these problems, not implementing measures that continue to create them.”

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