Nuked Gingrich, Part 6

His campaign is literally in shambles, but Newt Gingrich keeps the illusion that he's a legitimate threat in 2012 for the GOP.  His latest tactic?  African-American unemployment numbers (which are pretty bad) prove that black voters will go to the polls for the GOP next year.

Here's how the line works: Obama is the food stamp president, Gingrich says, whereas he wants to be the paycheck president. The difference comes down to creating jobs or not, and Gingrich says he knows how to create them.

And that's where the black vote comes in.

"No administration in modern times has failed younger blacks more than the Obama administration," Gingrich said.

He explained that "in May, we had 41% unemployment among black teenagers in America." That means if Republicans can put on a brave face, they might be able to turn the African American vote their way.

Think of the social catastrophe of 41% of a community not being able to find a job. But we have to have the courage to walk into that neighborhood, to talk to that preacher, to visit that small business, to talk to that mother. And we have to have a convincing case that we actually know how to create jobs.

"The morning they believe that, you're going to see margins in percents you never dreamed of decide there's a better future," Gingrich said. "It takes courage, it takes hard work, it takes discipline and it's doable."

Which is funny, because the unemployment rate for black teenagers was a whopping 49% just a year ago.  Obama's managed to drop that significantly, although it's still awful.

So if Republicans are so good at job creation, the Bush years should have been good for teen employment and especially African-American teen employment, yes?  The actual numbers of course tell a different story.

Overall teen employment rates plummeted under Bush.

Table 2:
Trends in the June E/P Ratios of Teens (16-19) by Gender,
Age Group, and Race-Ethnic Group, 2000, 2006, 2010

                                      Absolute   
                                      Change,     Percent
Group       2000     2006     2010    2000 – 2010 Change

All         51.4     42.1     28.6    -22.8       -44%
 
Men         52.4     42.3     27.7    -24.7       -47%
Women       50.5     42.0     29.5    -21.0       -41%
 
16-17       40.6     31.8     17.5    -23.1       -57%
18-19       62.3     54.0     40.8    -21.5       -35%
20-24       74.2     70.3     62.2    -12.0       -17%
 
Asian       35.2     27.4     18.9    -16.3       -46%
Black       31.6     27.0     15.2    -16.4       -52%
Hispanic    40.7     33.5     21.0    -19.7       -48%
White       56.3     46.3     32.1    -24.2       -43%

In fact, these employment to population ratios show that at the end of the Clinton years, teen employment was actually pretty good (although for black and Asian teens, the numbers were still pretty dismal even then.)

But look what happened during the Bush years:  teen employment was basically cut in half across the board for men and women in all ethnic groups among those age 16-24.  Black employment numbers actually fared the worst, especially when the financial crisis hit.   Either way you look at it, the Republican record of "job creation" for young Americans is dismal.  Millions of youth jobs were lost over the last ten years under Republican rule and the financial disaster they caused.

So no, Newt...African-Americans don't believe for a second that Republicans will improve the job picture for young people.  And neither should anyone else.