That action was to sign the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, known as the stimulus bill, a $787 billion package to create and preserve jobs and spur economic growth.
But, one year later, a non-partisan study by the
Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State
University has found that despite the president's noble efforts, the
economic stimulus has not only failed to boost the economy for
African-Americans and other historically disadvantaged people,
including women, but it has produced starkly disparate results between
white workers and people of color and failed to correct long-standing
racial disparities.
"I know that a lot of the programs that were
developed in the 1930s and '40s were developed in such a way that
didn't target people who were the most marginalized such as
African-Americans, Latinos and other groups like Native-Americans,"
said John Powell, executive director of the Kirwan Institute on why the
study was done.
"And I was concerned that unless we did that
during this deep recession, you could actually end up with a set of
programs that would not only not serve those communities well, but also
push those communities further behind."
Powell compared the stimulus to those established
during days of Jim Crow when racially disadvantaged groups were not
even considered in economic initiatives. The report tells why his
comparison is not extreme:
Source: Hazel Trice Edney, National Newspaper Publishers Association (The Charlotte Post)
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