Madame Noire | Black Women's Lifestyle Guide | Black Hair | Black Love

Unemployment has threatened significant portions of the American population, including teenagers. With this issue in mind, the White House announced their plan to create 180,000 for young adults (16-24) with a goal of reaching 250,000.

Summer Jobs+ essentially partners with businesses, non profit organizations and other forms of government to provide employment for low income young adults. This program comes immediately after the president proposed a $1.5 billion plan to implement summer and year round jobs for this same age group but Congress did not act on it. Afterward the Federal Government and the private sector came together to create an alternative initiative. The Summer Jobs+ program is the result of those efforts.

Companies like Bank of America, Starbucks Coffee Co.  AT&T Inc. have committed to providing 26,850 jobs to the program.  Wells Fargo, CVS, Deloitte and Gap Inc., have also signed on to take part in this program.

You can get the rest of the story from the White House Press Release here.

More on Madame Noire!

• Six Fashion Trends Sistas Need to Change. Now.
• What We’ve Learned From Ratchet Reality TV
• Do You Confuse Basic Male Traits as Bonuses?
• Ashy to Classy: Must Have Beauty Products to Curb Head to Toe Winter Dryness
• Ask a Very Smart Brotha: Freshmen Woes & Possessive Types
• S*** Black Girls Say vs. S*** White Girls Say to Black Girls

More and more people are earning advanced degrees and returning to school to school these days in lieu of poor job prospects but women seem to be doing so more than men. And while most women currently feel the odds are against them, economists say this strategy will be more beneficial down the line.

In the last two years, the number of women between the ages of 18 to 24 who are in school rose by 130,000, compared with an increase of just 53,000 for  men. Already, studies suggest that women are pickier about their job choices than men, and for a number of reasons including the ability to rely on a spouse, family responsibilities, or low pay. Consequently, women see the economic climate as an opportunity to improve their professional marketability by advancing their studies, while men are more willing to take whatever job they can get, an article in the New York Times found.

“The jobs out there just aren’t very good, and men seem more willing to take them for whatever reason,” said Jonathan L. Willis, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. “The women are looking at those same jobs and saying, ‘I’ll be more productive elsewhere.’ ”

In the long run, women will find that they have acquired a broad skill set of skills that provides a significant advantage over men whose prospects are already limited. Given that fact, Heather Boushey, an economist at the Center for American Progress, said she’s not surprised women are returning to school in droves, but “the real question is: Why aren’t more men doing that too?”

That’s a very legitimate question, and one researchers haven’t quite found the answer to, other than idea that societal norms still tell men they need to support themselves independently and be the breadwinner when it comes to relationships. This makes sense when you think of the stigma placed on men who still live with their parents but work full time. A woman who does the same thing either as a full-time employee or student is often not looked down upon nearly as much or at all.

But, as things currently stand, women are still losing a significantly higher number of jobs than men, forcing them to get creative with their careers. The bottom line is if you’re thinking of going back to school, now is the time to do it.

Are you pursuing more education as a result of the recession?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

More on Madame Noire!

• 7 Celebrities That Need a Makeover
• You Do You and I’ll Me
• Top 8 Celebrities Who Shed Pounds and Are Keeping it Off
• How He is Affectionate and What it Means
• Football Player Loses Wife to Cancer One Month after Saying ‘I Do.’
• Beautiful Day: A Story from Tracey Kenard

It may not surprise you that black women have been hit the hardest by the economic crisis. The Washington Post reports that while other segments of the nation’s unemployed are slowly starting to find work, a study from the National Women’s Law Center found that black women have lost more jobs during the recovery than they did during the recession.

The national unemployment rate declined from 9.0 percent to 8.6. percent in November; but the Bureau of Labor Statistic reported that the unemployment rate for black women actually increased from 12.6 to 12.9.

And that doesn’t include the 150,000 women who have become too discouraged to continue looking for work. (You have to actively be searching for work in order to be included in the unemployment rate.)

The only bright spot in this dismal news is that President Obama proposed a jobs bill that funds the rehiring of teachers, jobs for veterans construction jobs and job training programs for low-income young people and adults.

We’ll have to see what Congress is going to do with this one…

More on Madame Noire!

• WEEKEND WRAP UP: Kat Williams Wins Back Custody, Common vs. Drake? + More!
• Over Age Acne? Learn How To Beat the Bumps
• The Odd Couple: Hollywood’s Most Shocking Relationships
• Changing Faces: Common Cosmetic Surgeries Performed in 2011
• Do You Have a Love List?
• Unforgivable Hood Baby Names: Celebrity Edition
• Family Feud: Celebrity ‘Blood’ Battles

By Charlotte Young

These days the kids aren’t waiting in anticipation for daddy to come home from work. They’ve been with him all day. According to Bloomberg, while mommy is working, it’s the husbands that take on the role of keeping house and children.

Stay-at-home fathers are no new trend. According to family demographer Lynda Laughlin with the Census Bureau, the number has been growing since about 1988. But now, data from the Census Survey of Income and Program Participation shows that 54 percent of unemployed fathers with a working wife and preschool-age children are the primary caregivers, or the adult that spends the most time with the child. The number of dads providing consistent child care to children under 15 jumped to 32 percent in 2010.

Part of the reason behind the rise is attributed to the recession. Men were hit harder than women financially when the economy took a downturn. A report from the Pew Research Center revealed that men lost more jobs between December 2007 and May 2011 than women.

The recession may have taken a toll on the financial strength and the traditional roles in the family, but it certainly brought untold happiness to kids glad to have their daddy around.

“You can’t put a price on a father-daughter relationship.” Jeff VanderHejiden told Bloomberg. The former counselor at a residential program for troubled teens was fired last year, two weeks after he’d received a raise and a promotion.

But the recession can’t be blamed completely for the rising number of fathers as primary caregivers. Despite the loss, the study also revealed that men have regained job more quickly than women. It seems some men want to stay at home with the kids.

Ellen Galinksy, president and co-founder of the Families and Work Institute in New York, tells Bloomberg that as women become a stronger economic force, more men are deciding to stay home with the kids.

Some couples make the decision for the husband to stay at home as a financial decision regardless of the recession. After budgeting the potential cost of outside child care and the income of a low-paying job, they realize the two cancel each other out.

Patrick Spillman, 42 made the decision to stay home with his daughter for that very reason.

“If I’m making X and my wife is making X plus 10, who do you want making the money?”  He said to Bloomberg. “It’s a matter of dollars and cents.”

Birth rates among black women have dropped 2.4 percent as a result of the recession. Overall, preliminary data from 2010 show birthrates have dropped to 64.7 births per thousand women ages 15 to 44, from 69.6 births per thousand women in 2007, the year the recession began.

Economists aren’t surprised by this stat and neither am I. It wasn’t until I graduated from college and entered what we call the real world that I realized there was only a very small chance that children could be in my future. An entry level salary in New York City is one thing, but add Sallie Mae and credit card debt into the mix, and it felt like all signs were pointing to a barren dead end.

Admittedly my anti-procreation stance was somewhat fluid at first. But even as a few years went by, and a couple of promotions and small raises came, the increases never seemed like it would be enough to raise a child.  For every extra dollar I earned, the price of my monthly metro card went up 10. For every single percentage increase in my salary, my health insurance went up five points. Even with a mate, I knew it wouldn’t be likely that his financial situation would be drastically different from mine. I figured the best we could do is save a couple hundred dollars in rent, electricity, gas, and cable charges by planning together —hardly enough to add up to the $226,920 it takes to raise a child these days.

by Alexander Cain

With unemployment continuing to climb to historical highs, people are facing a new frontier that they may be unfamiliar with: unemployment. Even those with exceptional qualifications are receiving the pink slips as organizations cut expenses due to a tough economic landscape. The book Landing on the Right Side of Your Ass by Michael Laskoff offers a real perspective on being unemployed and how to move onto your next job in the best way possible. The book’s author, Michael B. Laskoff, writes the guide speaking from his experiences of being fired and re-hired for numerous jobs no matter what the fallout with former employers. No matter what stage you are in with your unemployment, Landing on the Right Side of Your Ass is a real survival guide for picking yourself up and getting back out, and winding up with a job that’s better than the one you lost.

Let’s face it whether you have been fired or recently quit a job, it sucks. Now you are facing a multitude of thoughts and emotions as you try to navigate through the unknown. You should naturally be angry at the situation and not act as if everything is OK.  While some self-help guides tell you to initially let it go or relax, the author goes in a completely different direction.

Binge and Purge. Whatever activity you need to do in order to let your anger out, DO IT! Kick, yell, scream, lift weights, run until you grow a beard like Forrest Gump, do whatever is necessary to get out all of your anger and frustration. This initial rage period is to prevent you from blocking your emotions and crumbling at a time and place not of your own choosing.
The question now becomes how long does this anger phase last. If you are still giving one-hour sob stories about your manager being unfair, you might want to continue to let out the emotion.

Admit It’s Your Fault. The biggest tragedy a recently unemployed person can make is not to learn from his mistakes. While this might be a tough situation critiquing yourself, it’s a necessary evil in order to be successful in your next career. Still think you were completely in the right with your former situation? If you did nothing else, you agreed to accept the job in the first place which set you up for failure from the start. Really think about some of the mistakes you made with your previous job and be sure to write them down to keep in mind as you go about your next job search.

Get A Non-Professional Life. Go back to when you were working and think of the activities you always wanted to do, but didn’t have enough time to do. Whether it was volunteering or picking up a new hobby, now is the time to pick up that activity. This is good for two reasons: 1) to prevent you from smashing your computer due to frustration of looking for a job 24/7, 2) during your next interview you have something to talk about if asked about your employment gap and a hobby to show that you are a well-rounded person. There is never a better time to pick up an activity when you have all the free time of being unemployed.

So now you have gone through the heartache of being recently unemployed and after venting you feel ready to begin searching for jobs, Part 2 of the book Getting Ready provides you tips and tricks on how to be successful on your job search.

by Cynthia Wright

New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo has made it known that the International Business Machines Corp. and Intel Corp. plan to invest $4.4 billion over a course of five years in order to create a hub for the next-generation computer chip technology.

After the official announcement, the New York Stock Exchange reported that IBM shares rose to $4.84 (2.8%) to $179.35. Prior to the announcement, the shares were up by 19% this year. At the NASDAQ Stock Market, Santa Clara based, Intel rose 60 cents (2.7%) to $22.84 in trading.

IBM is believed to be contributing $3.6 billion to develop computer chips using 22-nanometer and 14-nanometer process technology. In layman’s terms, a nanometer is one billionth of a meter and measures the size of transistors in a chip. The lower numbers are thought to be an indicator of a more advanced technology.

On the other side of the financial equation are Intel Corp., IBM, Globalfoundries Inc., Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., and Samsung Electronics Co., which will focus on transforming a 300-millimeter water technology into 450-millimeter technology, with the end result of producing twice the amount of chips.

During a press conference in Albany, senior vice president and director of research at Armonk, John Kelly stated this recent conglomeration is about the “computing systems IBM and others will construct using advanced technologies.” He continued, “This will create computers that will help doctors diagnose advanced disease.”

To prepare New York with the abilities for taking on such a monumental project, the state plans to invest $400 million into the State University of New York College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering. The university is located in Albany, a city in the northern part of the state.

Although, the $4.4 billion investment is a substantial amount of change given today’s economy, this project is believed to have created an estimated 6,900 jobs in the state, with 2,500 in the technology sector.

“This unprecedented investment in New York’s economy will create thousands of jobs and make the state the epicenter for the next generation of computer chip technology,” Cuomo said in a recent statement. Money will also be invested into the research and development facilities located in Canandaigua, Utica, Yorktown Heights and Fishkill.

Cynthia Wright is an avid lover of all things geeky. When she isn’t freelancing, she can be found on her blog BGA Life and on Twitter at @cynisright.

(Huffington Post) — From the looks of the mortgage relief companies Christopher Mallett has marketed in recent years, offering lower payments and new loan terms to troubled homeowners, one might easily get the impression that he has the backing of the federal government or is running non-profit help groups.  Mallett is the driving force behind usbankloanmodiicationgov.info and mortgagehelpgov.us. He also founded The Department of Consumer Services Protection, U.S. Debt Care, the U.S. Mortgage Relief Council and several other operations with similarly authoritative if not auspicious-sounding names. But people who turned to them for help didn’t receive services, according to court documents filed by the Federal Trade Commission in U.S. District Court this month. Their names were instead sold to companies that almost universally scam distressed homeowners, federal regulators say.

Read More…

(Huffington Post) — A little over two years ago, Floyd Kelly, then an associate at Walmart, transferred from one company store in Washington State to another. Although Kelly had worked full-time for years, he says that after the switch his hours dropped to part-time.  Ever since then, he’s been trying desperately to claw his way back to a 40-hour week.  “I’ve been trying to transfer into other full-time positions for over two years now,” says Kelly, who now works at Sam’s Club, which is owned by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. “But everywhere I’ve contacted, they told me all they have is part-time.”   For Kelly and other retail workers like him, the difference between full-time and part-time in this economy is the difference between eking by and slowly going under. In Kelly’s case, the reduced workweek means a paycheck that’s about two-thirds of what it used to be. It means a less reliable schedule, no sick days and no vacation days. And it means keeping roommates at age 50, just so he can cover rent.

Read More…

Monday morning, President Obama presented a plan for long-term debt reduction that included a tax hike for the “wealthiest corporations and richest Americans” who should “pay their fair share.”

GE Capital, which brings in billions of dollars in revenue, legally pays almost nothing in taxes. And billionaires, such as Warren Buffett, hold most of their capital in business assets which are taxed differently.

“Those who have done well, including me, should pay our fair share in taxes to contribute to the nation that made our success possible,” insisted the President. “Nobody wants to punish success in America,” he added, “This is not class warfare. It’s math.”

The plan also called for an end to the Bush tax cuts (which were designed to be temporary) for those with incomes of $250,000 or more, with the idea that increased tax revenue will enable continued funding of entitlement programs, nibble away at the national debt and pay for his stimulus jobs plan.

So, what does this mean for middle-class America?

Not much, really. Don’t expect to see any extra zeros on your bank statement.

Income and age restrictions on food stamps, housing assistance and federally-funded health care limit availability to victims of the recession who are not unemployed but drastically underemployed. Those who were truly middle-class (not just stretching a $35,000 salary to pay for an adjusted rate mortgage on a $300,000 house) do not qualify for welfare programs. Therefore, the President’s pledge not to support a “one-sided deal that hurts folks that are most vulnerable” mostly applies to the poor—a large percentage of which already qualified as poor.

Likewise, what incentive do wealthy individuals have to contribute more of their earnings to a federal government that has proven itself inadequate when it comes to managing money, especially when there is no guarantee that additional tax funds will be used properly? Republicans refuse to pass anything to credit Obama’s presidency; Democrats want to keep minorities hooked on entitlements; and, together they’ve decided what is best isn’t more important than re-election. Few are interested in paying for more Congressional dysfunction.

Job creation is the only thing that can save the middle-class and this economy. Furthermore, who puts people to work? Small businesses and corporations. Since banks won’t lend to small business owners or take chances on budding entrepreneurs with less than stellar credit, employment rests on the shoulders of Big Business. With Bank of America, the U.S. Postal Service and Best Buy scheduled to slash thousands of jobs; presumably a tax increase would further hinder job growth.

Ultimately, the “Buffett Tax” still leaves middle-class people with two choices: pig feet or chitlins.

But hey, he’s trying.

LaShaun Williams is a Madame Noire contributor and columnist whose work has appeared in The New York Times and on several other sites, including the Grio and HuffPost Black Voices. For more commentary on love, race, pop culture and politics, visit her blog Politically Unapologetic or follow her on Twitter @itsmelashaun and Facebook.