Blacks And Poor Americans List Unemployment As Larger Problem Than General Economy: Gallup

To a large number of Americans, an economic recovery without jobs is not really a recovery at all.

Overall, 55 percent of Americans picked either the general economy (29 percent) or joblessness (26 percent) as the country's most important problem, according to a Gallup poll released Friday, making this the fifth straight month of the year that Americans put the economy and unemployment atop their list.

The next most popular answer was the federal deficit, at 13 percent.

But now, there are a number of demographic groups that are identifying unemployment as an even bigger concern than the broader economy. Indeed, unemployment, not the general economy, was the top issue of concern for blacks, senior citizens, and people who earned $30,000 or less per year, according to the Gallup poll.

Meanwhile, men, white respondents, adults under age 65, and individuals earning at least $30,000 per year were all more likely to say that the broader economy is, right now, more important than jobs.

And while there was notable distance in the amount of concern expressed over budget deficits and the quality of health care, there was one area of broad consensus: people are dissatisfied with the government. That dissatisfaction ranked among the top concerns for nearly every group, particularly with respondents over 50 years old.

The Gallup results come just a week after a tepid jobs report indicated that just over 54,000 private-sector jobs were created in May. Overall unemployment rose to 9.1 percent from 9 percent.

It's not just weak job growth that has given indication of a weak recovery, either. The housing market has double dipped and a slew of unforeseen international disasters have U.S. production in sectors such as the auto industry.

The Gallup poll's findings are the results of surveys conducted between January and May. For the surveys, 5,149 adults around the country were contacted by cell phone and landline.

Comments

[mskermit]

01:15 AM on 06/21/2011

"An economic recovery without jobs is not really a recovery at all". This is one of the most truthful statements to date.

[Charles Bryan]

10:30 PM on 06/15/2011

I wanted to start a small business selling flowers. I could not afford the extra 75 thousands getting the place to code. They wanted me to install a spinkler system. That was 35k alone. Regulations prevented me from opening my business.

[returnofthejedi]

01:17 PM on 06/14/2011

Why is it that when we see discussion about the Economic woe in America we never seem to get around mentioning the cornerstone of financial ignorance know as trickle down economics?

[Philclock]

01:51 PM on 06/14/2011

"Species that refuse to adapt to changes in the climate oft times die off!"

That includes US, our freedoms, and American way of life, will die off if we don't exercise our responsibility and keep government, IE rule by the few, at our beck and call, instead of the other way around.

And that includes buying into drivel like "trickle down economics", sold by Demo-rats to justify MORE regulations, MORE regulators, MORE government take-over of private activities, for handouts, re-distribution,"safety nets", "infrastructure", all for the cause of....TRICKLE UP ECONOMICS, force redistribution of wealth to the "poor" (hey, sing me up, gimme some of that good old stimulus, I'm an economic victim!) who will spend it and get the economy going!!

Central planners are all alike, self-anointed experts for we the great unwashed, freedom and free choice is "inefficient", worked so well in totalitarian governments (Lenin's Russia, Mao's China, Fidel's Cuba, Hitler's Germany, etc.) except for the hundred million or so people sacrificed for the "greater good", and the equality of misery...except, of course, for the self-anointed elite (Fidel? Don't worry, he's having a great time).

[returnofthejedi]

06:20 PM on 06/14/2011

Sold by both parties Phil. Trickle Down on Americans has been sold by both. I can admit it, so should you!

[lmg1231]

12:44 PM on 06/14/2011

I dont know for certin, but seems to me that a record number of blacks voted for Obama. Black people who had never voted before. Why? Because they consider him black. Well, he is 1/2 white. But, you who voted for him, why dont you ask him where are all those jobs he promised you??

[Philclock]

01:53 PM on 06/14/2011

Whatever happened to "hope and change"?

Well, whadya expect from a feckless empty suit, who's been nothing more than a community organizer or political office holder, and has NO connection or experience with people that create, grow, and make this country productive.

[Each1Teach1]

11:40 PM on 08/01/2011

Yes, and make sure you ask that same question to the tea baggers that insist that Obama's stimulus idea of putting money into communities to create job growth is a very bad thing because that money is better spent enriching the wealthy. And, be sure to ask those same tea baggers that got voted into office on the "jobs for everyone" platform where the legislation is for improving the job market. If you have been paying attention then you know that some of the only thinngs that they have been interested in up to now is making abortion illegal and abolishing social security and medicare.

[oldstudent10]

11:17 AM on 06/14/2011

Who cares what "blacks" think? And for that matter, does it matter what the disenfranchised, blond 97.25 year-old, left-handed, club-footed female thinks is the biggest issue right now? Really, I want to know what the right-brianed Ukranian males think as a group now.

[Bob Wood]

09:59 AM on 06/14/2011

I suspect that economies have cycles...a­nd are like natural disasters.­..they pretty much just happen...u­nexpectedl­y. If you count one number per second...i­t will take you 31,720 years to reach one trillion. I don't think any human alive can imagine a number that large...le­t alone how to manage or control it. Our national budget is in the trillions ( debt $14 trillion and rising )...add the budgets of the other countries worldwide.­.all of them intertwine­d. Nobody has a clue. If you owned a company...­in this environmen­t...I doubt seriously that you would hire and expand. I surely wouldn't. Trillion dollar budgets aren't controled by men...men are controled by trillion dollar budgets. Time, most likely, is the solution..­.(sigh)

[Philclock]

11:45 PM on 06/13/2011

DROP THE #$@$ MINIMUM WAGE!!

Then employers can hire MORE unskilled workers, gets them a foothold into a REAL JOB, work up from there, instead of collecting handouts, redistributions, SEIU demonstration and picketing by the hour, or drug dealing; in other words, THEY GET A FUTURE!! If company's successful, they can pay BONUSES!! Gives companies the incentive to INVEST, TAKE RISKS, another language for Community Organizers and the Democratic Party's base waiting for their handouts and re-distributions.

[MiddleMolly]

01:05 AM on 06/14/2011

Yeah, working for 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 bucks an hour is a "real future".

And working for 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 dollars an hour will really help 50 year old laid-off workers get a real job and "work up".

And those 60 year old laid-off workers? They are going to "get a future"!

Wow... so you really believe that the answer to our problems is to turn into a third world country? But you are so superior that it won't affect you? Because you've done everything right in this world.

[JubalTHarshaw]

06:16 AM on 06/14/2011

Why deal realistically with unemployed Americans when we have millions of illegals that will work for less than minimum wage, right? When there is a glut of labor, labor is cheap. Anyone who doesn’t think that the illegals are a part of the unemployment problem isn't thinking. Minimum wage jobs are intended to be entry level jobs. If you want a future, you have to build it yourself - nobody is going to hand it to you.

[Philclock]

09:02 AM on 06/14/2011

No, the answer to being a FIRST world country is GIVE EVERYBODY AN OPPORTUNITY TO WORK, at whatever wage they'll negotiate, and what business owners will pay. Third world countries have NO JOBS; we've got lots of them, IF businesses are allowed to run their own business, without social engineers like yourself telling them, and telling workers, how to run their lives, strangling the growth that makes this country exceptional.

[jimdavis11]

08:49 AM on 06/14/2011

Since 1970 worker productivity, as a group, has doubled. The minimum wage would be $12.35 per hour if it had the same buying power as it it did in 1970. Now what?

[Philclock]

08:56 AM on 06/14/2011

So c'mon, make the minimum wage $100/hour so people make a REAL living...if they ever find someone to hire them.

[Philclock]

10:01 AM on 06/14/2011

....and furthermore, SO WHAT??

Let workers and companies figure it out, a job is just that, a job; willing employer, willing worker. If companies thrive, then workers have choices, moving to another company, start their own, hire their OWN workers!

When I was in college I worked as a dishwasher; then a hospital orderly, WAY below today's "minimum wage". Today I couldn't get those jobs; I'd be priced out of the market by "minimum wage" laws, thanks to Chappaquiddick Ted, his limousine liberal buddies and the Democratic Party, who'll buy my vote in exchange for handouts and redistributions, payroll taxes, pre-paid unemployment insurance, OSHA standards, bathrooms and parking spaces for the "handicapped", building codes written for labor unions and building standards cronies, etc.

Heck, some regulations are necessary; but my "reasonable" is NOT that of politicians (Democratic National party in particular) and their shakedown artists.

[J Duke Williams]

09:34 PM on 06/13/2011

Green?

[Antona Smith]

06:37 PM on 06/13/2011

Part three (and final) of my comments

Unemployment is 9% nationally, that means 81% of the population is employed (albeit, some may be underemployed). That average is higher for teens (17%, 45% for black male teens).
Then we have corporate controllers who are cutting people off at the knees by requiring high credit scores in order to get a job (impossible to maintain a high credit rating if you lost your job for more than 3 months). Then the housing industry has started to demand 20% downpayment and landlords are responding with increased rents, again, cutting off most of the middle class at the knees.
This is a multi-faceted problem with the need for a multi-faceted solution.
This president has created more jobs and gotten more done, dealt with national disasters and a national enemy. I am not saying he is perfect, he is not, but he is better and has done more than the previous president, now, what are you going to do?

[MiddleMolly]

10:48 PM on 06/13/2011

I fundamentally agree with you. Good, comprehensive post.

[JubalTHarshaw]

06:20 AM on 06/14/2011

This president has lost more jobs than anyone in recent history and he has failed to produce a net-net increase in jobs. Getting hired short term by eh government or in the last big McDonald's hiring blitz isn't an accomplishment. The jobs numbers are terrible and even Democrat analysts agree on that. As to the 20% down on a house, that is good business practice. If we had demanded that during the housing boom we wouldn't have millions of people sitting in houses they shouldn't have purchased in the first place. As of this week 25% of homeowners are sitting in houses with negative equity. Suddenly that no money down, roll your closing costs into the mortgage "dream home" looks like a nightmare...

[Antona Smith]

06:37 PM on 06/13/2011

Part two of my comments:
This has been a perfect storm of illegal wars under one administration that also obliterated the economic gains of his previous administration (Bush wiped out Clinton's gains with his massive tax cut). Then the unthinkable happened...
A black man was elected President and everyone thought he could fix everything while he was facing a congress that went on record to say THEIR ONLY GOAL WAS TO MAKE HIM A ONE TERM PRESIDENT with little thought to what was happening to the economy except to cut more tax breaks for the wealthiest of the wealthy.
In the mean time, corporations were deemed people, industries were on the verge of collapse so barely into office, this president had to rescue the economy from the brink, and perhaps made a deal with the devil to do so. He couldn't fix everything.
To distract from the needed reforms and successes, the part of obstruction created a bunch of noise with the tea party that really didn't realize they were being used economically by two uber wealthy brothers. And the vast majority of people were just trying to live and not keep up with all this.

[JubalTHarshaw]

06:23 AM on 06/14/2011

Mr. Obama had had 2 1/2 years to end the two wars that were sanctioned by Congress. Instead he has chosen to start two new ones without Congressional input. As to the "uber rich" who do you think has been pushing Obama's career? Poor people? Sorry, presidents are elected by rich backers and a rich Republican has more in common with a rich Democrat than he or she has in common with the middle class. Take a look at some of Mr. Obama's rich friends before jumping to a mistaken partisan conclusion.

[Antona Smith]

06:36 PM on 06/13/2011

My dear people, the unemployment rate in general, and among blacks, in particular, is a multi-faceted problem that needs a multi-faceted solution.
This recession actually began back in 2000 with small blips of industries laying off or downsizing, I am in marketing, my industry was 2001-2004 during it's height. The big boom fell in 2007 with the housing bubble and regardless of what anyone pontificates, 13% of the population, with roughly only 1/2 of them (meaning about 6% at that) being homeowners, Blacks DID NOT cause the recession.

[graffitijoe]

06:25 PM on 06/13/2011

I agree with the Blacks on this one. Unemployment is the #1 issue.

[Miss Peaches]

05:10 PM on 06/13/2011

Gallup never calls me....

[kprbears1]

04:26 PM on 06/13/2011

If you are making less than $30,000 odds are you skills are not marketable for anything higher (outside of higher skilled workers currently on unemployment). Face it; you will make be paid $60,000 plus to push a broom or bag groceries. Most will blame situations they've been "subjected to" however how many have stopped to consider it may not be the situations but more likely decisions they made in response to those situations? Odds are for every excuse someone come up with as to why their life is so terrible there is at least one alternative decision they could have made to improve the outcome.

[Emma Knight]

10:54 PM on 06/13/2011

Wrong assumption. I have a masters degree with honors from a major university in London and while I am currently employed part-time my income is 50% of the income I earned when I graduated from college over 10 years ago. It is ignorant to assume in this day and age that low income equals low achievement, low education or lack of desire to work hard. We are no longer the America that financially rewards people for hard work and achievement and to continue to pretend that is...is simply ignorant.

[MiddleMolly]

01:07 AM on 06/14/2011

He'll come back and tell you that you didn't get your Master's degree in a "marketable" field. They just refuse to open their minds even one tiny bit.

[LightShadow62]

03:20 PM on 06/13/2011

Prediction:

Just weeks before the 2012 election there will be some mysterious financial trigger that will cause large layoffs across the country. This will be coupled with $6.00 plus for a gallon of gas.

[graffitijoe]

06:28 PM on 06/13/2011

Triggered by Obama? Running on the "now you need me more than ever" tactic?