(CNSNews.com) – Unemployment for both women and
African-Americans is higher today than it was when President Barack
Obama first took office in 2009, according to federal government data. Despite an economy that has technically been in recovery since June
of 2009, many economic indicators are the same or worse than when
President Obama gave his first address to a Joint Session of Congress in
February 2009. “We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America
will emerge stronger than before,” Obama said in that speech. However, employment for African-Americans and women has not recovered
and, in fact, is worse today than it was when Obama said those words. At the end of January 2009, 12.7 percent of African-Americans were
unemployed. Four years later, January 2013, the situation was worse,
with unemployment higher at 13.8 percent.
President Barack Obama. (AP Photo)
Further, an additional 1.2 million African-Americans had left the
workforce entirely during the same time period, with the number of those
reported as not in the workforce rising from 10.3 million in January
2009 to 11.5 million in January 2013. People not in the labor force are those who are younger than the
retirement age who are unemployed and no longer looking for work,
indicating they have either given up looking for work or gone into early
retirement. For women, the story is not much better. In January 2009, 6.9 percent
of women in America were unemployed. By January 2013, 7.8 percent of
women were unemployed. Similarly, the number of women who had left the workforce and given
up hope of finding a job grew in the four years since President Obama
promised to rebuild and recover. In January 2009, 4.9 million women were
not counted in the labor force – by 2013, that figure had risen to 5.4
million.
Discussing the legacy of Pope Benedict XVI on the February 11 edition
of MSNBC's "The Cycle," co-host Krystal Ball praised the retiring
pontiff for being a "real advocate for addressing climate change" and
for joining Twitter, but lamented that he was "outspoken in keeping
women from being ordained" and "went after the largest group of nuns in
America for basically spending too much time focused on the poor and not
enough on abortion and gay marriage."
But as we at NewsBusters have noted time and again, the nuns who were
corrected by the Vatican were NOT attacked for their good social work
and most certainly were not denounced for being too busy caring for the
poor to deal with the politics of abortion or gay marriage. No, the Vatican's rebuke -- which was tenderly-worded and pastoral in nature, by the way -- was largely centered on questions of Catholic doctrine and ecclesiology, as my colleague Paul Wilson explained in an April 2012 post addressing a similar gripe by the Washington Post's Melinda Henneberger (emphases mine):
(CNSNews.com)
– Since taking office in 2009, food stamp rolls under President Barack
Obama have risen to more than 47 million people in America, exceeding
the population of Spain.“Now is the time to act boldly and wisely – to not only revive this
economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity,” said Obama during his first joint session address to Congress on Feb. 24, 2009. Since then, the number of participants enrolled in food stamps,
known as the Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program (SNAP), has
risen substantially. When Obama entered office in January 2009 there were 31,939,110 Americans receiving food stamps. As of November 2012—the most recent data available—there were 47,692,896Americans enrolled, an increase of 49.3 percent. According to the 2011 census, Spain had a population of 46,815,916.
Furthermore, between January 2009 and November 2012 the food stamp
program added approximately an average 11,269 recipients per day. President Obama will deliver his fourth State of the Union address Tuesday evening. Obama is expected to focus on jobs and the economy.
Discussing the legacy of Pope Benedict XVI on the February 11 edition
of MSNBC's "The Cycle," co-host Krystal Ball praised the retiring
pontiff for being a "real advocate for addressing climate change" and
for joining Twitter, but lamented that he was "outspoken in keeping
women from being ordained" and "went after the largest group of nuns in
America for basically spending too much time focused on the poor and not
enough on abortion and gay marriage."
But as we at NewsBusters have noted time and again, the nuns who were
corrected by the Vatican were NOT attacked for their good social work
and most certainly were not denounced for being too busy caring for the
poor to deal with the politics of abortion or gay marriage. No, the Vatican's rebuke -- which was tenderly-worded and pastoral in nature, by the way -- was largely centered on questions of Catholic doctrine and ecclesiology, as my colleague Paul Wilson explained in an April 2012 post addressing a similar gripe by the Washington Post's Melinda Henneberger (emphases mine):
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