By Kenneth Mallory (Politic365.com) On the heels of President Barack Obama’s speech to announce the $450 billion American Jobs Act, the White House gave specifics Friday on how the legislation would benefit African Americans, who have an unemployment rate of 16.7 percent.
The roundtable with reporters included Danielle Gray, deputy director of the White House National Economic Council, Marie Johns, deputy administrator of the Small Business Administration, and Ronald Kirk, U.S. trade representative and former mayor of Dallas, Texas.
According to Gray, projections from independent forecasters indicate the American Jobs Act would provide 1.9 million jobs next year.
Gray outlined the four main proposals of the act, which include substantial tax relief for small businesses, primarily by slicing in half their payroll taxes; modernizing and rebuilding America through infrastructure investment (nearly a quarter of the act’s funds would go toward that effort); “an aggressive strategy” to tackle long-term unemployment; and tax relief to workers, achieved in part by extending payroll tax cuts to them.
Other specific provisions of the Act — many which were touted as bipartisan — include extending unemployment insurance benefits; providing $2 billion in subsidizing employment opportunities modeled after the TANF Emergency Contingency Fund; a $35 billion investment to curb layoffs of teachers, firefighters and cops; providing easier access to capital for small businesses and reducing regulatory impositions on these businesses; investing in school infrastructure; providing a tax incentive for employers who hire veterans; and barring discrimination of the unemployed.
The White House believes the American Jobs Act will help African Americans in a number of ways:
•An estimated 1.4 million unemployed blacks will benefit from extended unemployment insurance, which would continue into 2012.
•About 20 million black workers will benefit from the extension and expansion of payroll tax cuts.
•More than 100,000 African American-owned small businesses will benefit from the plan’s reducing employer payroll taxes in half, providing business owners with an added bonus for hiring new employees and extending provisions that provide an incentive for investment.
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