Anderson@Large

Alaska Native Firms Get Money for Nothing

Many in the mainstream media are in the grip of Palin Derangement Syndrome. Another Alaska phenomenon should also feel the hot glare of the media spotlight: Alaska Native Corporations.

From Day One, I have been tracking stimulus spending and minority business enterprises. To date, the total value of federal stimulus contracts awarded to 8(a) firms is roughly $2.7 billion, including $1.5 billion in sole source contracts.

Alaska Native Corporations have received a disproportionate number of 8(a) contracts. A ProPublica analysis found that through September, ANCs have received $832 million in direct stimulus contracts:

Through September, ANCs had won stimulus contracts worth $823 million for 742 projects, according to the most recent government data. More than 350 projects, or nearly half, rely on subcontractors to do at least some of the work.

By comparison, all other stimulus contractors subcontracted more than 5,600 of nearly 26,000 stimulus projects, or 22 percent. Other minority-owned firms hired subcontractors on 33 percent of their projects.

[...]

The stimulus reports suggest that ANC subcontracting sends a substantial portion of revenue to outsiders. Of the $470 million in ANC stimulus projects that are at least halfway completed, native corporations awarded about $200 million to other contractors, ProPublica found.

ANCs play by a different set of rules. A 2009 investigation by the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight found a majority of ANCs exceed 8(a) size requirements.

ProPublica notes “ANC subsidiaries have come to dominate the SBA program”:

While other firms in the program have a limit of $3.5 million on contracts for services and $5.5 million on contracts for goods, ANCs are exempt and have won awards exceeding $100 million.

The exemption makes ANCs a potentially lucrative partner for large firms acting as subcontractors. And government contracting officers turn to ANCs to avoid lengthy competitions and meet their small business contracting goals. ANCs also may compete for contracts.

And get this: While other minority firms have a nine-year limit on participation in the 8(a) program, ANCs can stay in perpetuity. In fact, ANCs are among the largest federal contractors.

If you agree with Senate Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight Chairman Claire McCaskill that ANCs' “contracting preferences also create the potential for waste, fraud, and abuse,” make some noise.

The new sheriff in town, House Oversight & Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, wants to hear from you.

Let Issa know ANC's unfair competitive advantage hurts your ability to create jobs.

State of the Union and Black Joblessnes

President Barack Obama will deliver his second State of the Union address tonight at 9 pm ET.

In a video emailed to his political supporters, Obama gave a preview of what he will say:

I'm focused on making sure the economy is working for everybody, for the entire American family.

When all is said and done, will Obama give a second thought to chronic black joblessness? African Americans are, after all, his most loyal supporters.

The Center for American Progress reports:

African Americans saw few economic gains during the last business cycle, with stagnant or declining homeownership and wages, high unemployment rates, and low employment rates even as the economy grew.

I agree with the Center that disparate problems require targeted solutions:

First, policymakers need to pay continued attention to the weak labor market to ensure there is a rising tide that can lift all boats. Second, policies intended to create more jobs need to include provisions that particularly target communities of color. Third, policymakers need to put in place policies that go beyond the immediate need for job creation for everybody to help erase differences in economic security and opportunity by race and ethnicity.

Read more: The State of Communities of Color in the U.S. Economy

New Year, Same Joblessness

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the unemployment rate fell to 9.4 percent from 9.8 percent in December. The economy created 103,000 new jobs.

Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said in a statement:

The overall trend of economic data over the past several months has been encouraging, due in large part to the initiatives passed by this Administration, but we still have a ways to go. The measures we worked with Congress to pass last month that continue tax cuts for the middle class and extensions to unemployment insurance are vital to sustaining the recovery. The Administration will also continue to focus on actions that the President has recommended to increase growth and job creation, such as providing incentives to encourage businesses to invest and hire here at home, investing in education and infrastructure, and promoting exports abroad.

While Goolsbee may be “encouraged,” BLS reports 260,000 people have dropped out of the workforce. Another 2.6 million persons are “marginally attached to the workforce.”

For black folks, there is little reason to be encouraged. The unemployment rate was basically unchanged at 15.8 percent. Black joblessness was 16.0 percent in November.

The slight dip is due to a decrease in black male and black youth unemployment. The black male jobless rate is 16.5 percent, down from 16.6 percent in November.

The black youth jobless rate fell to 44.2 percent, from 46.3 percent in November.

For black women, December “ain't been no crystal stair.” The black female jobless rate rose to 13.2 percent, up from 13.1 percent in November.

Down and Out in NYC

In advance of release of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly jobs report, the ADP National Employment Report found that private sector jobs fell by 39,000 in September.

McClatchy Newspapers reports:

The ADP report doesn’t measure public-sector jobs. The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics does, and its Friday report for September will be the last one before congressional elections on Nov. 2. It’s now expected to be quite soft.

That’s because state and local governments face enormous budget pressures and are laying off workers. In addition, temporary hires for the 2010 census are still leaving the government’s payroll.

The news is almost as grim in New York State, where for the first time in 70 years, there has been a decline in personal incomes.

A new report from Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli found that state personal incomes declined by 3.1 percent in 2009.

While bailed-out banksters reward themselves with fat salaries and bonuses, job losses are continuing. Since January 2008, Wall Street has shed 31,300 jobs.

DiNapoli said:

New York’s economy is improving, but not fast enough. Job growth has been weak and not all of regions of the State are benefiting equally. While revenue collections are also improving, the rate of growth is too slow to solve New York’s budget problems. State and local governments must focus on reducing the cost of government. New Yorkers are tightening their belts. Government has to do the same.

Great Expectations

A new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll found President Barack Obama’s job approval is at an all-time low. Only 42 percent of Americans approve of Obama’s job performance; 56 percent “think the president has fallen short of their expectations.”

Expectations are a terrible thing to waste.

At today’s Christian Science Monitor breakfast, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said Obama played the expectations game and lost.

In the push for his economic plan, Obama administration officials said that if Congress passed the stimulus package, unemployment would stay below eight percent.

The unemployment rate has hovered around 10 percent since February 2009.

While noting the economy “hasn’t done well enough,” Frank observed:

The public doesn’t grade on a curve. The public grades on reality, particularly when expectations have been raised.

Summers Heads Back to School

Larry Summers, the director of the National Economic Council, is heading back to Harvard after the midterm elections. Summers’ departure was announced by the White House in a statement.

President Barack Obama said:

I will always be grateful that at a time of great peril for our country, a man of Larry’s brilliance, experience and judgment was willing to answer the call and lead our economic team. Over the past two years, he has helped guide us from the depths of the worst recession since the 1930s to renewed growth. And while we have much work ahead to repair the damage done by the recession, we are on a better path thanks in no small measure to Larry’s wise counsel. We will miss him here at the White House, but I look forward to soliciting his continued advice and his counsel on an informal basis, and appreciate that he has agreed to serve as a member of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

Polls show Americans have lost confidence in Obama’s handling of the economy so Summers’ “brilliance, experience and judgment” are more suited for the faculty lounge than the real world.

In any case, Summers is probably exhausted.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said:

Look, I think in many ways they [Summers and members of the economic team] probably fit four or five years worth of work into two years.

Hey, Larry, don’t let the door hit ya on your way out.

Labor Day Blues

The new jobs report is out. The unemployment rate climbed to 9.6 percent in August.

Private-sector employers added only 67,000 workers to the payroll.

The black unemployment rate is 16.3 percent, up from 15.6 percent.

The unemployment rate for black men is 17.3 percent, up from 16.7 percent in July.

For black women, the unemployment rate rose to 13.2 percent, from 12.9 percent.

The black youth unemployment rate is a whopping 45.4 percent.

The jobless numbers show President Barack Obama’s “summer of recovery” has yet to begin.

Still, Christina Romer, the outgoing chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, writes:

Today’s employment report was better than expected. Private sector payrolls increased by 67,000 in August—the eighth consecutive month of private sector job growth. This growth is consistent with other recent data reports indicating that the economy is continuing to recover, albeit at a somewhat slower pace than in the early spring. The rate of job growth, however, is not as large as needed to bring the unemployment rate down quickly. Indeed, the unemployment rate rose one -- tenth of a percentage point to 9.6%, as more than half a million people joined the labor force. The President continues to work with his economic team and with Congress to identify measures that could help speed the recovery and put the economy on a path of steadily declining unemployment.

This Labor Day, millions of Americans are looking for signs that the economy is “coming back.”

They now must hope for a “better than expected” Indian summer of recovery.