U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan (Image: Courtesy of U.S. Education Dept.)

This week’s edition of Our World with Black Enterprise, with host Marc Lamont Hill, features a special focus on the state of American education. The show kicks off with an exclusive All Access interview with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Hill talks with Duncan to gain insight into the Obama Administration’s strategy to fix America’s public schools.

Then, in our Trending Topics discussion, a panel of education stakeholders grade the performance of Duncan and the rest of the Obama Administration when it comes to improving our public school system. Weighing on the panel are Eagle Academy Foundation President and CEO David Banks, Trenton, N.J. School Board Member Missy Balmir, and City College of New York Assistant Professor of Sociology and Black Studies R. L’Heureux Lewis.

This education-focused edition of Our World airs concurrently with a series of special reports on how the education crisis is affecting Black Americans and what can be done about it, which begins in the September 2011 issue of Black Enterprise magazine.

Our World with Black Enterprise is the award-winning weekly 30-minute program, hosted by Marc Lamont Hill, providing a fresh mix of interviews with today’s top newsmakers and celebrities, eclectic roundtable discussions concerning the hottest topics affecting African Americans, and profiles of some of the world’s most intriguing people.

Click here for times and stations where Our World with Black Enterprise airs in your area.

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• African-American Buying Power Nears $1.1 Trillion

Black buying power is expected to reach $1.1 trillion by 2015, according to The State of African American Consumer Report. The report, the first of yearly installments in a three-year collaboration between Nielsen and the National Newspaper Publishers Association, analyzes the buying power and media consumption of African Americans.

The study on African-American consumer trends found that the percentage of Black people attending college or earning a degree has increased to 44 % for men and 53 % for women. The number of Black households earning $75,000 or higher grew by almost 64%.

Growth in affluence, social influence and household income will continue to impact the Black community’s economic power, according to Nielsen.

Read more at The Root…

• President Obama Convenes Policy Conference for African Americans

President Barack Obama welcomed African American leaders from around the nation to Washington, D.C. on Wednesday to discuss his contributions to the Black community and what he can improve upon. Attendees ranged from community leaders and professors to elected officials and faith leaders.

The African American Policy in Action Leadership conference had an extensive lineup, which included a meeting with Obama administration officials—from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson.

“Part of the function of this gathering is for you to share your ideas, your best practices,” the president said to participants. “Let’s do some brainstorming, we want your input, we want your ideas.”

The White House has released a new policy report outlining the Obama administration’s achievements in the African American community.

Read more at The Boston Globe…

• Eddie Murphy Drops Out of Oscar Telecast

Less than four months before the Oscars airs, the Academy is scrambling to fill crucial roles after Eddie Murphy dropped out as host of the show. The news comes just one day after his friend, Oscar co-producer Brett Ratner, resigned.

“I was truly looking forward to being a part of the show that our production team and writers were just starting to develop, but I’m sure that the new production team and host will do an equally great job,” said Murphy.

Ratner bowed out on Tuesday morning because of attention brought on by his public use of an anti-gay slur, and a subsequent discussion of his sexual habits on Howard Stern’s radio program.

Read more at the New York Times…

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Young entrepreneurs are the future of an American economy in dire need of recovery. But how can enterprising young people make their business dreams come true when they’re saddled with record amounts of student loan debt? Scott D. Gerber, founder and president of the Young Entrepreneur Council and Gen Y Capital Partners, just might have the solution to this problem.

By pairing young entrepreneurs (those age 35 and under) who have a viable business with mentors, capital, housing, and student loan reimbursement through Gen Y Capital Partners (a $10 million fund), Gerber thinks he can unleash a generation of entrepreneurs. BE Next spoke with Gerber to learn about Gen Y Capital Partners and the “patriotic duty” of  Americans to encourage and enable young entrepreneurs.

Click here to read more at BlackEnterprise.com/BENext

BE's EIC Derek T. Dingle shoulder-to- shoulder with Geithner (Image: Kevin Allen)

When President Obama delivered his second State of the Union address to the American people last week, he boldly proclaimed his plan to “win the future” by making investments in industrial innovation, education and infrastructure.  As he charged the nation to “out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world,” the president also stressed “the need to take responsibility for our deficit and reform our government,” offering proposals such as streamlining  government and a five-year freeze on domestic spending outside of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Obama shared his vision during a week that produced a number of economic reports, both promising and troubling. The good news included the Commerce Department revealing Friday that gross domestic product – a broad measure of goods and services produced – grew at a 3.2% annual rate in the fourth quarter, regaining the level reached before the Great Recession. The Conference Board, an industry group, reported that consumer confidence in January rose to its highest level in eight months. And a day after the president’s address, the Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed the 12,000 threshold for the first since 2008. The bad news, on the other hand, was alarming. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected that the federal budget deficit for 2011 would hit $1.5 trillion, almost 10% of GDP. The bellwether S&P/Case-Shiller index of home values in 20 cities fell 1.6% from November the prior year, the greatest 12-month decline since December 2009.  And real estate market researcher RealtyTrac found that high unemployment drove up foreclosures in 72% of 206 leading metros in 2010. With U.S. unemployment at 9.4% — 15.8% for African Americans – all eagerly await release of the US Department of Labor jobs report this Friday.

The man who will help President Obama put the American economy back on track is Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner. For the past two years, the nation’s chief financial officer has been pivotal in every major economic and financial policy decision, from stabilizing the financial system and averting Depression 2.0 to helping thousands gain foreclosure relief. In our exclusive interview on Jan. 26, a day after the State of the Union, BLACK ENTERPRISE Editor-In-Chief Derek T. Dingle was the the only media company to sit down with Geithner and talk about the delicate balancing act of making investments to increase American competitiveness while putting the nation’s financial house in order. As the interview began, Geithner characterized the administration’s response to financial crisis and recovery: “We were fire fighting, defusing bombs, using a little battlefield medicine, triage but now it’s about rebuilding.”  The following are edited excerpts from that session:

BLACK ENTERPRISE: What is the current state of the American economy?

Timothy Geithner: The economy is growing and it’s getting a little more momentum now. We’re seeing exports stronger, private investment is stronger, you’re seeing manufacturing come back, the agricultural economy is very strong now, the strongest it’s been in a long period of time. The economy has created about more than 1 million private sector jobs in the last 12 months or so which is much more, much more quickly than coming out the last two recessions which were much milder recessions. So we’re making progress but we have a lot of challenges. We have very high levels of unemployment still and we’ve got these very large, unsustainable long-term deficits. What the president did [at the State of the Union] was to lay out a very optimistic, very confident vision for how we meet those challenges and what we need to do in the United States to make sure that we’re making more progress, creating a stronger economy and going back to living within our means.

In the State of the Union, the president discussed making investments in innovation, education and rebuilding infrastructure. Given the deficit, how can you pay for that?

The things we need to do to make sure that we are creating more things in the United States, that we’re rebuilding infrastructure and we’re educating our children, those are things that we can afford as a country. Of course, we have to make sure we can demonstrate to the American people we can spend less on less important things [and] spend their taxpayer resources much more wisely. If we do that we can afford to make those targeted investments, and those investments have a very high return. They have huge returns to the American economy in terms of higher growth rates, more opportunities for Americans, more income growth for Americans, you’ll see more jobs. That’s why it’s so important to do.

How will the president’s plan impact the current unemployment situation?

The best thing we can do for the unemployment rate today and the next two years is to make sure the economy is growing more rapidly. That’s the most powerful way to get people back to work. It’s important for people to understand that growth has to come before you see job creation at a much more rapid pace. So what the president is trying to do is make sure we’re investing today in things that are going help strengthen not just short-term growth but long-term growth. I’m very confident that’s the best strategy for the country.

You’ve put out the financial fire, corporate earnings are rising, the Dow just crossed 12,000 [last week]. Why does the corporate sector still have a lack of confidence when it comes to hiring?

The economy went through the worst crisis we had seen since the Great Depression. It was a shattering blow to the basic confidence of Americans and American business. It’s going to take some time for people to be more confident that it is definitively behind them and make them believe that they can take a risk again on the strength of the American economy but that’s happening now. If you look at how businesses are spending their resources now, private investment grew at a roughly 10% annual rate last year, a little faster than that. That’s pretty rapid growth, much more rapid growth than the overall economy as a whole.  So you’re seeing businesses start to put their money to work again, start to take a risk again and in doing that they’ve added back 1 million jobs in the last 12 months.  I think you’re going to see the pace of job creation now start to accelerate as growth gets stronger.

What is your jobs forecast for 2011?

I don’t do forecasting but if you look at what the best private forecasters say about the American economy they think the economy is going to be growing roughly somewhere between 3% to 4% this year and that will translate into a substantial, meaningful increase in the rate in which we’re getting people back to work.

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Geithner is all smiles, while in the hot seat (Image: Kevin Allen)

Even though the administration initiated measures like targeted tax incentives, increased SBA loan guarantees  and developed a $30 billion fund for community banks to lend to small business, most institutions are still not providing such financing.  What can be to be done to get small banks to boost their lending?

The president did put in place a sweeping, very creative comprehensive set of measures and a bunch of tax incentives for small businesses, too. They are starting to help now. You’re starting to see for the first time the rate of growth of lending by banks to small businesses starting to strengthen. If you talk to banks across the country, they’re starting to see more demand from small businesses for lending which is good. That’s a sign that they think there’s going to be more demand for their products. They want to be able to put more resources to work, bring people back to the job and will need to borrow to do that. And you’re going to start to see that happen on a greater scale.

Are there any other measures to shore up small businesses?

We have a program in place that gives states substantial resources for them to put more ammunition into their lending program for small businesses. We want to make sure that if someone has an idea [and] want to create a new business, they can get funding. If someone has an existing business and want to expand, we make sure they can find the financing to do that.

There’s still a high incidence of home foreclosures. What is the administration doing to curb that trend?

The principle thing that’s driving the rate of foreclosures across the country, and it’s not surprising, is the high levels of unemployment. If someone loses [his or her] job or your spouse loses his or her job, you’re going to find it hard to meet your monthly payments on your house until you get back to work. Until we get the economy to grow more rapidly and until we get the unemployment rate down more definitively, it is going to be hard to get the housing market back on its feet more quickly.  The president is doing everything he can to try to do that. Now as we do that, we’re trying to make sure we reach as many Americans as we can and give them a chance to save their house. We can’t reach everybody.

So you’re trying to help those who were responsible and found themselves in a tough situation due to no fault of their own.

Exactly. Not only that, you had people who were taken advantage of and we need to help them out.  You have people who were completely innocent victims, who were responsible in how they borrowed, bought a modest home but who saw all their neighbors lose their homes, saw house prices in their neighborhoods fall very, very sharply. That hurt them a lot, too. That’s why it’s so important that we do what we can to get the economy growing again, get house prices start rising again and try to reach people who really deserve to be helped stay in their homes.

The Center for American Progress recently released a report that communities of color have been the most devastated by the Great Recession and the Obama administration should develop targeted programs to help them. Is the administration developing such programs?

The Center is absolutely right. This is what always happens in a recession. The impact falls much more brutally, much more severely on African American communities [and] urban areas. That’s the tragic thing of recessions and financial crisis. The programs that we designed are designed to go to where the needs are greatest. One thing we’ve done is to make sure that the states that were hardest hit in the housing crisis or have cities and communities that were suffering the most damage receive more assistance.  So we have a program in the housing market which gives 18 states which are at the center of the crisis still a substantial amount of resources that they can use to help people who are unemployed and risk losing their home or give people greater principal reduction on their mortgages. We think that’s a good strategy. We’ve also tried to put more substantially more resources into the community development financing program and into our New Markets Tax Credit Program. So we are directing resources where they’re needed most and where over in the past we’ve seen they have huge benefits in helping communities get back on their feet more quickly.

For more of this interview with Secretary Geithner, view Black Enterprise Business Report, which airs on Saturday, Feb. 5, and Sunday, Feb. 6; upcoming video clips on blackenterprise.com; and the April issue of Black Enterprise magazine.

• For more of our political coverage, see:
• Obama’s plan to win the future
• Rescuing communities of color
• What you can learn from…the Obama White House Shake-Up

The proposal, which exempts military personne and must first be approved by Congressl, comes only two days shy of Mr. Obama’s deficit commissions’ deadline to submit extended fiscal and tax policy changes. According to the White House, the move is slated to save $2 billion during the 2011 fiscal year, $28 billion over the next five years, and more than $60 billion over the next 10 years.

But we want to know what you think: Is the Obama Administration’s new proposal putting an unfair burden on federal workers?

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POLL: Can President Obama Still Bring About the Change We Need?

POLL: Pat-Down or Enhanced Scanning?

What’s Really Behind the Frustration With President Obama

How should Obama proceed with the “new Congress?”

President Obama may be a convenient target for our frustration, but he is not the true cause of it. (Source: White House)

How soon we forget. Less than three years ago, America was facing economic disaster—a mortgage crisis, the collapse of our financial markets, the crippling of our auto industry—that could easily have resulted in a new Great Depression. A hopeful nation chose President Barack Obama to lead us through the peril and restore confidence in our ability to not only survive, but restore economic security and return America to greatness as a global leader among nations.

Now, only two years later, many of us are angry, frustrated because economic relief has been too slow in coming for too many people. The target of much of our dissatisfaction today is the same person who we invested our hopes only a short while ago: President Barack Obama. If we’re not careful, that frustration will be turned to our own destruction and suffering for our nation with the upcoming mid-term elections.

The distress is real and legitimate. First, people of all races and economic backgrounds are continuing to suffer as a result of an economy that continues to struggle. Too many people can’t find jobs, hold on to their homes, or even maintain a secure standard of living.

Second, people, again regardless of their race, economic background or even their political leanings, are extremely disappointed with our legislative leaders. With the Democrats controlling both the House and the Senate and the Republicans doing their best to block their agenda, nothing is getting done.

And finally, there’s the truth that everyone knows, but nearly everyone pretends not to: Despite what the election of Barack Obama to the presidency says about how far America had progressed as a nation, there are still people who just cannot get past the issue of race. They still can’t bring themselves to respect a black man, even if he is the President of the United States, regardless of his policies and actions. For example, prior to the election of President Obama, who could have imagined parents literally keeping their kids home from school to prevent them from listening to a back-to-school address from a sitting U.S. President encouraging them to study hard and make the most of their educations?

President Obama has become the target of frustration from people who are truly suffering and disappointed with how long it is taking to bring about the recovery and restore a sense of economic security. He is being blamed despite the fact that he inherited this mess; he didn’t create it. As much as we hate to hear it, no president can undo in two years the negative consequences of a decade of destructive economic decisions and bad policies.

Despite how displeased we are with the slow pace of economic recovery, we cannot allow that dissatisfaction to be used to derail President Obama’s agenda after only two years of his administration. No matter how much we are suffering now, it can only get worse, not better, if we allow our frustrations to cripple President Obama’s effectiveness after only two years in office, destroying the promise of his policies before they have a chance to bear fruit.

It is critical that we continue to support President Obama through next week’s mid-term elections and beyond. As much as Americans are suffering with the slowness of economic recovery, if progress is stalled, or worse, undone, it could return us to the brink of economic disaster—the brink that the President deserves credit for pulling us back from during the first two years of his administration.

Earl G. Graves Sr. is the Founder, Chairman and Publisher of Black Enterprise

Al Sharpton, one of the speakers at the One Nation, said Democrats are the country’s best hope for job creation

A veritable rainbow coalition of thousands recently gathered at the Lincoln Memorial as part of the “One Nation Working Together” rally designed to energize liberals and progressives to turn out in November for the mid-term elections. The organizers sought to muster up the same level of enthusiasm that Tea Party activists and establishment Republicans have demonstrated in recent months in reaction to current polls suggesting that the Democratic Party may lose several key seats during the Nov. 2 elections–and perhaps even its majority in Congress.

Demonstrators from more than 200 organizations, led by the NAACP and including organizations like the AFL-CIO and National Council of La Raza, came from across the nation and carried signs advocating a range of positions from job creation to ending the war in Afghanistan.

“We need America to deal with the issue of jobs. We bailed out the banks. We bailed out the insurance companies and now it is time to bail out the American people,” the Rev. Al Sharpton, president of the civil rights group National Action Network, said in his remarks. “We need to rebuild the infrastructure and provide jobs and training for the American people.”

Speaking to reporters later, Sharpton said that while the protestors may have varying views on the Obama administration’s job creation policies, he maintained that if Democrats aren’t in charge and able to continue such efforts the results would be disastrous. That’s why, he added, it’s critical that Democrats turn out en masse in November.

“I think that some people may differ, but all of us know that if this administration is not there we don’t have a chance if Palin and that crowd is in,” he said. “So we may all debate on tactics but none of us are debating on direction. We’ve got to come out in four weeks and we’ve got to vote.”

Van Jones, a former special adviser to the Obama White House, promoted green economy jobs, stating that he’d never heard of “a wind slick or a sun spill,” and that farmers, for example, could use their land to grow energy crops or develop wind turbines.

“If you want to see the future, look up. Look at the sun, look at the Saudi Arabia of solar power we have beaming down on us that can help to power America. If you want to see the future, look up at the wind and sky,” he said. “The most important work we have is to repower America in a clean way. Let’s connect the people who most need work with the work that most needs to be done.”

Cassandra Maafoh and Natalie Skeiky, pre-med sophomores at Duke University who traveled from North Carolina to Washington, will be first-time voters this fall. Still, they understand the power of the ballot.

“America is a democratic society and, in order for people to get things done, people first have to ask for it, demand it; and the way we get what we want is by voting, “ said Skeiky. “Otherwise, how are our representatives going to get into office and know what we want and how to execute it to give us what we want?” Maafoh agreed, adding that too many people prefer to complain rather than exercise their voting power.

Of course, the inevitable comparisons to the Beck rally held on August 25 were made. According to Associated Press new reports, “Saturday’s crowds were less dense and didn’t reach as far to the edges as they did during Beck’s rally. The National Park Service stopped providing official crowd estimates in the 1990s.”

In a press release, the event’s organizer’s estimated that the crowd numbered more than 175,000.

“It’s inspiring to look out and see so many people — even more than we even expected — from so many different places, coming together as one nation in support of jobs, justice, and public education,” said Leah Daughtry, national campaign director of One Nation Working Together.  “This is an important moment in the progressive movement–as each person returns home and continues to rally our fellow Americans as we head to the ballot box in November and re-commit ourselves to our common future.”

Dingle, UNCF CEO Michael Lomax, Act-1 Group CEO Janice Bryant Howroyd, Economist Bernard Anderson (Source: Lonnie C. Major)

In his 69-minute State of the Union Address last week President Obama reset his administration’s agenda with a renewed emphasis on job creation and small business development. He stated: “We cannot afford another so-called ‘economic expansion’ like the one from last decade – what some call the ‘lost decade’ – where jobs grew more slowly than during any prior expansion.” To put more than 15 million Americans back to work, the President proposed, among other items, making use of the $30 billion in TARP funds that major financial institutions repaid to the government to fund small businesses and provide a one-year, $33 billion tax credit to encourage small companies to hire workers. Moreover, he urged Congress to pass a jobs bill – a $174 billion version was passed in the House last December.  He is seeking to achieve a delicate balancing act as he unveils his record balancing act, making investments in such areas as education and clean energy while imposing a domestic spending freeze to reduce the trillion-plus deficit.

Against this backdrop, BLACK ENTERPRISE in partnership with Walmart held its own forum to evaluate the economic and financial state of black America. Under the banner, “20/20 Vision: A Look Ahead at Black America in the Next Economic Boom,” the event brought together business leaders, policy makers, economists and entrepreneurs to discuss issues vital to the future of African Americans and the nation as a whole: jobs and workforce readiness; small business and innovation; and financial reform and wealth building.. The dialogue resulted in a series of policy recommendations directed to the Obama Administration as well as strategies for black-owned businesses, trade associations and other organizations shaping future plans. The analysis and recommendations came from a group of the best and brightest including BE Board of Economists members Bernard Anderson and Thomas Boston; BE 100s CEOs Janice Bryant Howroyd of temporary services giant Act-1 Group and Bill Mays of Mays Chemical, financial powerhouses Christopher Williams of Williams Capital Group LP and Eugene Profit of Profit Investment Management. Input was also provided from a cadre of Obama Administration officials: Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk, White House Domestic Policy Council Director Melody Barnes, Commerce Department Senior Advisor Rick Wade, Presidential Economic Advisor Jared Bernstein and National Director, Minority Business Development Agency David Hinson. In reviewing policies in wide-ranging areas such as the green economy, education, global trade, financial reform and capital formation, many of these officials encouraged forum participants to play a role in the policy-making process by offering suggestions and feedback.

Although the Great Recession is officially over – Commerce reported on Friday that US GDP grew by 5.7% in the fourth quarter of 2009 – long-term joblessness continues to persist, especially for African Americans who must contend with the current 17.2% unemployment rate and rates in five states exceeding 20%. “There’s an old saying that when whites catch a cold, blacks get pneumonia. Joblessness is at the foundation of the dysfunction in black communities,” Wade asserted in his remarks.

Economist Anderson underscored Wade’s point. In his presentation as a panelist on the Jobs and Workforce Readiness panel, he maintained that blacks comprise 44% of the long-term unemployed and large numbers have given up finding a job. He further stated that traditional manufacturing and service jobs will not return with the recovery because of structural changes in the US economy. Furthermore, he says green jobs will not be able to make up for a good number of those positions. Act-1’s Howroyd, however, was optimistic in surveying the new business landscape. More individuals, she says, will have to come to grips with the fact that a large segment of the labor market with be comprised of a “permanent temporary workforce” in which workers will have to become more portable. And the shift to energy and technology sectors will require mass retraining and lifelong education. The upside: She believes opportunities will be bountiful for a new breed of “nimble workers.”  Another jobs panelist, United Negro College Fund President & CEO Michael Lomax maintains that historically black colleges and universities will play a vital role in the preparation of African Americans for emerging industries in the near term as well as over the long haul.

Entrepreneurship will serve as another driving force for future employment and economic advancement. In an interview session on small business and innovation, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter asserts business growth and employment opportunities can flourish through more expansive public-private collaborations on the local level. In the complementary panel on small business and innovation, MBDA’s Hinson asserts “minority business must enter strategic alliances to compete for larger contracts and gain access to capital. It is important to remember all minority businesses are not small.” (For more detailed reports, see Black Enterprise Business Report (airing Feb. 6); upcoming video reports on BlackEnterprise.com; and the April 2010 issue of BLACK ENTERPRISE magazine.)

Using the dialogue and ideas from forum sessions, BE has developed what could be considered the first draft of an action for black America – a series of initiatives that serve as policy recommendations for the Obama Administration as well as directives for African American business owners, trade associations and civic groups.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter discusses small business development with Black Enterprise Editorial Director Alan Hughes. (Source: Lonnie C. Major)

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION
•    Seek more advice and input from African American CEOs, labor leaders and financial firms in policy-making. For instance, Obama Administration officials should consult with minority business owners before finalizing plans on how it will use TARP funds to make working capital loans available to small companies.
•    Create a direct lending facility for businesses. In order to ensure that small and medium-sized businesses receive adequate funding to meet immediate needs, the federal government would develop a body similar to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide direct financing to such companies.
•    Streamline certification and review rules in the government procurement process and financing criteria. Businesses continue to be hampered by government red tape to gain consideration for contracts and other programs. The emphasis should be place on making government contracts more accessible to minority firms.
•    Ensure greater unbundling of government contracts. By doing so, the Obama Administration will create a more diverse pool of small and medium-sized suppliers to handle stimulus infrastructure work and other government contracts. As a result, more employment opportunities will be created.
•    Include greater involvement from HBCUs in programs that prepare students for college and skill-based employment. Although community colleges play a valuable role in education and retraining efforts, HBCUs will ensure that African Americans gain four-year degrees to participate in clean energy, information technology, biotechnology and other emerging industries.
•    Establish a new G. I. Bill to provide expanded employment and entrepreneurial opportunities. Based on a concept offered by Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter who indicated that “veterans represent 25% of my city’s homeless population.” African American Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans – a number of whom are disabled – continue to be among the hardest hit by the current economic environment and require training and skills development.
•    Provide tax credits to incentivize individuals to put money aside for retirement. Even though 401Ks and IRAs are vehicles available to finance retirement, there are too many individuals – especially minorities – that don’t access such programs or use them effectively. Additional incentives will encourage more individuals to participate in investing and other such wealth-building efforts.
•    Create early-stage financial literacy and entrepreneurial development programs. Similar to the Educate to Innovate program that will make students more competitive in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), President Obama should promote a similar initiative involving consumer and investor education as a supplement to his financial reform efforts. The entrepreneurial training component would prepare individuals to develop businesses in emerging industries.

Broadway Consolidated Cos. President Margaret Garner and Minority Business Development Agency National Director David Hinson (Source: Lonnie C. Major)

RECOMMENDATIONS TO BLACK BUSINESS
•    Become fully involved in gaining information and finding access points for government employment, education and business programs. Whether its Race to the Top education grants, stimulus contracts or programs tied to the green economy, African Americans must be proactive in pursuing services that will help them advance as entrepreneurs, professionals and investors. For instance, Black entrepreneurs should seek contracting opportunities across several agencies including energy, agriculture and transportation. Black business organizations, civic groups and industry trade associations can play a greater role in providing information and direction on how to access programs made available by the Obama Administration.
•      Create partnerships to gain access to capital and larger contracts. A strategy that is staunchly advocated by MBDA’s Hinson, minority businesses will be able to gain greater economies of scale as well as the ability to pursue more lucrative tier 1 corporate contracts and expansive government stimulus work through the formation of  joint ventures and, in some cases, serving as investors
•    Develop public-private partnerships. Black businesses must connect with state and local government officials and press for greater inclusion in programs and projects – especially as a growing number of municipalities create “green zones” and other initiatives tied to emerging industries.
•    Black businesses should serve as incubators for next generation of entrepreneurs. These companies would provide paid apprenticeships for individuals in a range of growth industries.