New Black Business Lists from Maggie Anderson ("Our Black Year") and South Florida Black Business Network

There are two new Black Business Directories.  Both have just been released. They are in "Beta" development where all the features on the website may not work or the data quality is incomplete. They also have limited listing since they are still gathering businesses for their directory.

Maggie's list by Maggie Anderson is a new Black Business Website.  It lists business plus Black business news and financial planning articles. Maggie Anderson is famous for "Our Black Year" when she purchased items from Black business only for one year.

Maggie's List
Maggie Anderson website

South Florida Black Business Directory

South Florida Black Business Directory
SFBBD facebook page

Amazon is creating 100,000 jobs. Who loses ?

USA Today has a story about Amazon creating 100,00 jobs and the consequences. The story is here.

The list of Amazon open positions is amazing

https://www.amazon.jobs/

December Unemployment Review: Black Unemployment below 8% in Obama's last labor report

December Labor Report

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the December unemployment report on Jan. 6th, 2017.  It was last unemployment report that will be released during president Obama's term of office. While the public directly credits or blames the president for the state of the economy, most economists know the president has little direct power over the economy. Even over the long term. Given that, a significant milestone was achieved when the Black unemployment rate fell below 8% for the first time since February 2001. More on this topic later.

Summary

The December report showed a small increase in US unemployment to 4.7% while the Labor Force Participation rate remained flat at 62.7%. Non Farm Payrolls (NFP) by 156,000 jobs including 63,000 in healthcare. Healthcare has added over half a million jobs this year (514K). Average wages increased by 10 cents after a surprise 2 cent drop in November. The number of unemployed workers increase by 120,000 to 7.5 million people.  There were large increases in health care hiring (+63,000), trade and transportation and hospitality and leisure. Manufacturing was also up(+17,000).




NFPs continue moderate growth, increasing by 199,000 jobs on average each month since September 2010. September 2010, at the end of the recession, was the last payroll reduction.




All of the major indexes of labor employment and unemployment where unchanged. The indicators have not budged in roughly a year. We are nearing full employment and the true end of the recession. Now the focus will shift back to larger structural problems such as wage stagnation, income inequality and wealth inequality.


The Big Story

The big story is the Black unemployment rate fell to 7.8% in December. The last time the rate was below 8% was sixteen years ago (in February 2001). Damn. Black men have an unemployment rate of 7.6% while Black women have a rate of 6.7%. The Black teenage rate is 26% vs. 14% for whites.






The U-6 rate show continued improvement dropping to 9.2%.  U-6 includes all unemployed, people working part time who want full time work, and marginally attached workers (basically everyone who is available to work)

The Black U-6 rate fell by a half of one percent to 12.3%. This rate captures the real unemployment rate among Blacks who want to work.  The Black U-6 rate was as high as 24% in April 2010.

Here you can see a comparison between Black, White and Hispanic/Latino unemployment rates below.

The Business Survey showed moderate employment growth. 

The healthcare sector was the big winner.

ADP reported 153,000 NFP jobs were created.  The jobs were split among small businesses (+18K), medium sized businesses (+71K) and large businesses (+63K).  According to ADP goods producing business shed -16K jobs while services hired 169K workers. Manufacturing lost -9K jobs.

Paychex small business jobs index was up slightly at 100.62 in December after 3 months of declines.

Wait, am I being manipulated by advertising targeting Black consumers ?

Just found this on the web.

Which of the eleven Black consumer groups do you fall in? Maybe "Black is Better" or "Connected Black Teens." How about "Faith Fulfills" or "Stretched Black Straddlers"? A 2008 Radio One / Yankelovich Black Market Segmentation Study can tell you which consumer group you belong to. 

In June of 2008, Radio One and Yankelovich conducted a marketing segment study of American Blacks.  Marketing segment studies are common in the advertising world. They are also kept secret and usually never made public. For example, Phillip Morris and Lorillard targeted Black consumers with menthol cigarettes which were considered "cool" based on marketing studies.

Segmentation studies are used tailor advertising messages to appeal to different groups.  They are also used to target ad spending to generate the best results. For example, you don't want to spend money on ads targeting people who hate your product and believe it causes impotence . You want to spend money on people who will give you their last dollar with a little motivation. Verizon is always running feel good ads on Black shows.

What's rare is to have a comprehensive and detailed study fully published on the internet. Especially a study about what Black People think, feel and believe. Some of the appeals to emotions and beliefs in the study are a little creepy. But, hey, my beliefs are my own, right? Wait am I being manipulated ?

Anyway, it's kind of interesting

http://www.blackamericastudy.com/

http://www.blackamericastudy.com/segments/

Trump and Jobs: Trump makes it look easy

Obama

We can't believe how fast some of these corporations folded when confronted by Trump over jobs. If it was this easy to get companies to create US job, why didn't Obama do it. 

Obama blew a golden opportunity. After his jobs summit, he could have seized the moment. Instead he got distracted by other issues.  He was blocked by the Republicans. And never really returned to jobs.

It seems the president's education and training caused him to be overly analytic and cerebral regarding jobs. Jobs are the most emotional issue of all. Instead, he listened to his economic advisers who said recovery is just around the corner. But someone who has lost their job does not want to hear statistics and reports. They want Bill Clinton saying "I feel your pain". Obama should have been hammering home the jobs issue and pounding the "do-nothing congress." . 

Trump 

Regardless of how many actual jobs he saves, Trump has won because it appears like he is doing something for the working man. Donald Trump cares about me.

We progressives know something is going on with these big corporations.  But we just can't figure it out. 

Why are these companies caving so fast to Trump ?

1) Are they afraid of bad press ?
2) Are they afraid of alienating crazy Trump and his supporters ? 
3) Could they carry out a successful boycott that progressives could not ? 
4) Are corporate CEOs just great big suck ups?

Our money is on #4.  CEOs have gotten to the top by sucking up to people in power. They have spent their whole careers kissing the right cheeks.  So when trump comes along they only do what comes naturally. 

Anyway, here are the stories on Trumps jobs saving activities. Wish we could find a story called "Obama saved my job" but we can't. 

Washington Post Trump Jobs overview

The Hill also has a look at the issue

Ford - 700 jobs, cancelled MX factory

Carrier - 800 jobs but exact number is unknown

GM - Threat

Sprint - 5000 jobs owned by softbank of Japan

Apple general presure to manufacturing in the US

Dow 100 jobs at trump rally

Version 2

President Obama's 2017 Economic Report. Average to Good Results but Hillary still lost the election

President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers released the 2017 economic report on Dec. 15th, 2016. Overall the economy is in great shape compared to the 2007-2009 recession. We are also doing well compared to other developed countries (EU and Japan) . The economy is finally and completely out of the recession, jobs creation is consistently about 150K per month, the financial system is stabilized and 20 million additional Americans have healthcare. Even wages are rising slightly.

Hillary Lost and Trump is Inheriting a Great Economy

The best economic indicator, however, is Hillary's loss in the election. Obama and his economic wizards were unable to elect Hillary.  The people who compiled the report, the people who helped Obama steer the economy, the people got 20 million Americans health insurance are now the very same people out of a job. So either the economic advice was not that good or their political skills were not that good.

Longer Term Problems

The report also shows a couple other worrisome points: 1) in the face of an incredibly slow recovery, they gave up on any kind of fiscal stimulus after being repeated blocked by the Republicans and 2) how tight the administration was with corporations who donate money but also suppress wages and export jobs. Overall it looks the the administration was too close to big corporations who destroyed millions of jobs during the recession.

However big, long term structural problems remain. Wages for the bottom 50% of earners have been dropping through the recession. They have been flat since about 1980.  The economy is creating a surplus of jobs but lots of low wage jobs. Income and wealth inequality continue to increase. College costs continue to rise while wages for new graduates are flat. (Nearly 25% of college graduates opted for income based repayment). Finally, incomes for the 1% continued to rise.

Funny Report Highlights

The are also some funny moments in the report if you look closely. Income and wealth inequality continue to increase. But the inequality chart in the report includes ACA taxes, transfers and benefits allowing writers to conclude that Obama reduced inequality. Another interesting point is highlighting the pitifull 1.3% wage growth during Obama years as compare to 0% during the prior 30 years. Its sad when wage rose at 1.3%  rate and it's a positive development.

You can read the report here.

2017 Economic Report of the President webpage