Opinion

OP-ED: Vote Like Your Money Depends On It

Published

12 years ago

October 28, 2014

“It’s not businesses that create jobs” ~ Hilary Clinton

Seriously? The following quote was taken from Mrs. Clinton’s campaign speech last week. Is she also going to tell us that water is not wet?

To the entrepreneur that starts out with a dream and an idea and that works 80 plus hours a week to build a business those words of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sound like nails going down a chalk board. Obviously neither Hillary Clinton nor this administration knows where jobs come from because the job creation during this administration is dismal at best.

Thisadministration is touting that the unemployment rate has dropped to 5.9% the lowest since the summer of 2008. But if that is truly the case why is everyone still not working? Because it is not the unemployment numbers we should be looking at it is the job participation rate.

The Labor Force Participation Rate which in September slid from an already three decades low 62.8% to 62.7% the lowest in over 36 years, matching the February 1978 lows. And while according to the most recent Household Survey, 232,000 people found jobs, what is more disturbing is that the people not in the labor force, rose to a new record high, increasing by 315,000 to 92.6 million people who have left the work force.

And this trend is not getting better. According to an article in the Kansas City Star, titled Business Startups Hit a 30 year Low “Startups of new businesses, which are historically the key source of new jobs. Are at their lowest point in 30 years. They’re occurring so sparingly that U.S. businesses are now dying faster than they’re being born. The news is shockingly bad and starting to look like a death spiral.”

Indeed, a Kauffman-funded Census report cites that “new firms and young businesses account for about 70 percent of gross job creation and disproportionately contribute to net job creation.” Over 50% of the working population works in a small business ergo, less entrepreneurs will continue to cripple the U.S. economy.

And for black Americans a simple glance of a list of the wealthiest blacks in America from the Oprah Winfrey’s to the Robert Johnson’s prove that wealth creation for black Americans is in entrepreneurship. The story of Greenwood, Oklahoma in the 1920’s known by many as the Black Wall Street because of it’s vast wealth and prosperity had amassed over 600 successful business.

The blacks in Greenwood would become multi millionaires because of the businesses they started which ranged from grocery stores, movie theaters, banks, law offices, a hospital and even a bus system. Tragically , Greenwood, OK aka Black Wall Street would fall victim to the Tulsa race riots of 1921 which has been coined one of our nation’s worst acts of American racial violence in which 35 square blocks of business and homes were torched by angry white mobs.

Karen Watson is the author of the book, “Being Black and Republican in the Age of Obama”. Email karen.watson@gopbuzz.com

As you go to the polls to hire a politician to work for you question whether their ideas and intents are pro entrepreneur or not. And make sure your choice is fiscally sound, if we begin to vote as if our paychecks depended on it we might just see a new Black Wall Street rise again!