Jeb Bush Wants A Recession In Washington. For African-Americans, There Already Is One.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) said that if elected president, he plans to induce “a recession in Washington.”

“We have the benefit now of all of this philosophy of offering free things to people not working,” the Republican presidential hopeful told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Wednesday. “I think the better message is, let’s disrupt Washington. Let’s create a little bit of a recession in Washington, D.C., so that we can have economic prosperity outside of Washington.”

A campaign spokesperson appeared to confirm to the Daily Beast that Bush meant an actual recession -- at least two consecutive quarters of economic contraction -- and wasn't just using a figure of speech to describe cutting federal government spending.

There's just one problem with Bush’s plan: Many of Washington’s African-American residents are already in dire economic straits.

African-Americans make up nearly half of the District of Columbia’s population of more than 650,000. But the unemployment rate among the city's African-Americans is 15.8 percent, according to the progressive Economic Policy Institute’s analysis of official data. That's more than twice the city's overall jobless rate of 7.7 percent and more than five times white Washingtonians’ unemployment rate of 2.9 percent.

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