The U.S Census Bureau reported this week that poverty has reached a new high – 46.2 million people are living below the official poverty line – which indicates a distressed economy even though we are not officially in a recession.
Meanwhile, the fiery President Barack Obama, who delivered his much-touted jobs speech before a joint session of Congress last week, has once again receded into the background as it becomes clear Republicans won't support a number of his proposals, including tax increases on the wealthy to pay for his $447 billion American Jobs Act.
Obama was absolutely right when he said, "But the millions of Americans who are watching right now, they don't care about politics. They have real-life concerns. Many have spent months looking for work."
Yet Republican congressional leaders, fearful of the tea party politicians and activists, are unlikely to do much – if anything – to help move Obama's plan forward.
That's a shame, and they ought to pay for their inaction and inability to come up with their own jobs plan by next year's election. But, as the president said this week in pushing for his plan, those who are unemployed don't have 14 months to wait for something to happen.
The census bureau's report is brutal, and illustrates what one economist is calling the "lost decade." "We think of America as a place where every generation is doing better, but we're looking at a period when the median family income is in worse shape than it was in the late 1990s," Harvard University economist Lawrence Katz told the New York Times.
That poverty in the U.S has reached a 52-year high also reveals, not surprisingly, that minorities are among the hardest hit, with blacks experiencing the highest poverty rate at 27 percent, up from 25 percent two years ago, the Times reported. High rates were also reported for Latinos and Asians.
What about LGBTs? While we are not specifically categorized in the census bureau's report, we have experienced joblessness right along with the rest of society. In fact, it has been well documented for years that the transgender community suffers from significant unemployment or underemployment even when the economy is good. But even now LGBT Americans are feeling the pinch, with many going more than a year without a steady job.
Despite these grim economic markers, the president missed a prime opportunity during his speech last week to call for passage of one piece of legislation that won't cost millions of dollars: the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. While an inclusive ENDA won't by itself create any jobs, it will help those LGBTs who have jobs to keep them as it would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
When Obama addressed Congress last week and kept imploring them to "pass this jobs bill – pass this jobs bill ...," we kept saying to ourselves, "pass this employment non-discrimination bill too," because LGBT people can't get jobs if they are discriminated against (as they are in 29 states, 38 for transgender people), and they can't keep their jobs if an employer decides to fire someone because they are LGBT.
Yet the Human Rights Campaign has not lobbied for ENDA as a jobs bill. In fact, we're hard-pressed to recall any recent lobbying for ENDA by the country's largest LGBT rights organization. And now that its president, Joe Solmonese, has announced his resignation, it's unlikely HRC will step up and expend political capital for a bill it perceives as dead on arrival. To us, however, it's all about framing the issue. And if HRC's leadership would tailor the argument for ENDA to these tough economic times – a jobs bill without a million-dollar price tag – it could gain some traction on Capitol Hill. American businesses are already prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race and a host of other categories, so it won't increase their costs to add sexual orientation and gender identity to their list.
Lobby for ENDA now, HRC. Pass ENDA now, Congress.