Stimulus Cash Isn't Making It to Hard-Hit Minorities

With unemployment at 14.7% among African Americans and 12.2% among Hispanics, the recession is hitting minority communities particularly hard. But as is often the case with so-called “colorblind” spending, stimulus funds, intended to be equal-opportunity, aren’t making it to these groups. The government must “start targeting recovery efforts toward communities that the recession itself is already targeting,” writes Angela Glover Blackwell in Salon.

“There are countless seldom-seen barriers to communities of color getting the help they both need and deserve,” Blackwell writes. Stimulus funds are going toward highways, not public transportation, which gets countless lower-income minorities to jobs; meanwhile, states are spending less than half their stimulus cash on cities. “The legacy of racism remains baked-in in the way our government spends its money,” Blackwell concludes, and it’s time to change that. (More recession stories.)