Graphic depicting Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, while being featured on Press TV World News on October 5, 2012. Azikiwe discussed the real unemployment rates in the United States., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
To watch the Press TV World News interview with Abayomi Azikiwe, editor, Pan-African News Wire, just click on the website below:
www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/06/265238/us-dems-reps-cant-fix-unemployment
Sat Oct 6, 2012 10:56AM GMT
A political analyst says the United States’ political environment cannot produce a viable program to address the massive unemployment crisis in the country.
A new report shows that the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose last week as the hiring process remains sluggish in the job market.
The weak hiring trend was expected to pushed up the country's unemployment rate from 8.1 percent in August to 8.2 in September, raising concerns about the pace of the economic recovery.
Press TV has conducted an interview with Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, from Detroit, to further discuss the issue. The following is a rough transcription of the interview.
Press TV: You’re speaking to us from Detroit, Michigan, a place which has suffered a lot of unemployment. Do you believe that this news that the government’s policies are not working will come as a surprise to any of Detroit’s residents?
Azikiwe: No, it will not. We were hit first. We were the most industrialized city in the United States, perhaps in the world. During World War II, Detroit was known as the “arsenal of democracy” because they were able to convert the entire automotive industry, production industry over to war production.
Today, we face unemployment rates that are way over 28 percent just in the city of Detroit. The actual unemployment rates are somewhere close to 44 to 50 percent.
The problem that the president has is that he has not taken effective action to stimulate job growth among the key sectors of the workforce that are the most affected as a result of the worst economic crisis that we’ve experienced since the Great Depression. In actuality, the unemployment rate is much higher than the official statistics would suggest.
In last night’s debate, the president mentioned that his policies have created five million jobs. Now, people may question those figures; but if we accept those figures just on face value, the fact of the matter is that anywhere from between 35 and 40 million people inside the United States are in need of jobs. They’re either unemployed or underemployed.
This is clearly going to be another blow to the Obama administration’s efforts to get reelected, and the elections are just one month away.
Press TV: Speaking about elections, sir, I wanted to ask you about Mitt Romney. Do you believe that his policies or his proposed policies, at least, would be better for the US economy?
Azikiwe: I don’t believe that his policies would be better either. I think that the dominant economic forces inside the United States do not feel that it is profitable at this time to create jobs.
The only way jobs can actually be created right now would be through the public sector, through massive hiring within the public sector of the economy, that is, rebuilding the cities, restructuring the infrastructural aspects of the cities, in the field of education, public transportation, social services, and senior services. These are the sectors that really need assistance, and the health care field.
This does not represent any focus of the actual debates that are going on inside the United States at present. Last night, we didn’t hear any real concrete proposals in regard to creating the tens of millions of jobs that are needed right now inside the United States.
So I don’t believe either political party, the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, has a sound program for the creation of the millions upon millions of jobs that are needed right now by working people inside the United States.
This is going to be a serious problem irrespective of who’s elected in the next month to become the president of the United States.
No comments:
Post a Comment