Category: Opinion-OW

No one ever said that higher education wouldn’t cost money. Across the country, tuition is steadily rising and students are taking longer to pay off their student loans.
Today, 44 million consumers share $1.4 trillion in borrowed student debt – more than double what it was in 2008. On average, graduating seniors with a bachelor’s degree begin their careers with about $30,000 in student loans, while graduate students are almost assured of incurring six-figure student debt.

On Feb. 20, the United Nations declared a state of famine in South Sudan. Man-made crisis and conflict have left 4.9 million in need of urgent food assistance and at least 100,000 in immediate danger of death by starvation.
Since then, our country has made progress in aiding those in need, not only in South Sudan, but in Yemen, Nigeria and Somalia. At the end of April, the House of Representatives passed a resolution I authored urging the Trump Administration to release supplemental funding and call for a ceasefire between the parties engaged in South Sudan’s civil conflict.

Black workers continued to experience lackluster job growth under the Trump Administration, according to the latest jobs report from the Labor Department. Although, the share of Black workers in the population that held jobs (employment-population ratio or E-POP), ticked up from 57.6 percent in April to 57.7 percent in May and the unemployment rate decreased from 7.9 percent to 7.5 percent, the latest numbers also indicated that some Black workers exited the labor market.

The 7.5 percent Black unemployment rate is more than double the jobless rate of White workers, a stubborn disparity that has existed for decades.

As the president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF), I’m spending a good amount of time working to build strategic, government alliances that extend beyond our traditional Democratic support. If you’re wondering why, all you need to do is look at a map of where America’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are located.
The fact of the matter is that a majority of TMCF’s 47 member-schools are clustered in southern and midwestern states completely controlled by Republicans. By that, I mean states where the governor, both U.S. senators, both chambers of the legislature and most of the U.S. House members are Republican.

The Republican Party continues to miss the mark when it comes to engaging the Black community.
For those Republicans, who fastidiously claim they don’t believe in “identity politics (IP),” let me give you a piece of advice: Stop It!
Politically speaking, IP is a campaign that is based on the particular needs of a specific group of people that will give them the rationale or incentive to vote for your candidate.