By Aldon Thomas Stiles California Black Media Officials in Sacramento and Washington frequently point to the low unemployment rate in the state and around the country as proof that the U.S. economy has recovered from the downturn experienced during the global COVID-19 crisis. But the total unemployment rate for Black Californians seems stuck at almost ...

California is making history through the American Rescue Plan by helping more people get quality health insurance at prices that have never been lower. The landmark pandemic-fighting law provides new and expanded financial assistance to help more people get covered and stay covered, and now it is helping Californians who recently lost their jobs. A ...

By Dianne Anderson Long Beach residents are urgently seeking help with housing insecurity, rental or mortgage assistance, both during and after the holidays, as unemployment benefits are soon set to stop for millions of Americans. It couldn’t have come at a harsher time. In Long Beach, unemployment hit over 15 percent in September. Jesse Johnson, ...

By William M. Rodgers III Professor of Public Policy and Chief Economist, Rutgers University   The job of slicing up the economic pie in the U.S. has traditionally fallen to Congress, with the Federal Reserve tasked with making sure there is enough to go around. But this could soon change. Under proposals put forward by Democrats in ...

By Charlene Crowell   As the COVID19 pandemic continues to unfold with surging confirmed cases and ever-rising deaths, the Department of Labor announced on April 16 that more than 22 million consumers filed new unemployment claims since late March. For these and other Americans, the federal government’s one-time financial stimulus is intended to lessen the ...

By Julianne Malveaux The April unemployment rate, at 3.6 percent, is at its lowest rate since December 1969. Payroll employment increased by more than 250,000, outperforming expectations and reversing the disappointing job creation numbers of last month. First quarter growth was reported at 3.2 percent, a robust figure that exceeds estimates, earlier this year, that ...