In their recent report, the Economic Policy Institute offered some particularly alarming data for workers in those hardest hit groups and their families. It forecasts that unemployment in 2010 could reach 18.1 percent for African American workers nationally and a staggering 27.8 percent for African American workers in Michigan. According to the report, these high rates of joblessness could leave half of all the country's African American children in poverty.

At the Surdna Foundation, while we stand ready to leverage short-term strategies to help America's workers, we are also committed to investing in advocacy, policy reform, practice, and programs that support a longer-term vision and address the core of America's economic and workforce challenges to ensure that we rebuild in a manner that helps us realize a more sustainable and just future for America's workers and communities.  To this end, we are investing in infrastructure and place-making efforts that will not only help put Americans back to work but also strengthen the foundation on which the next, more sustainable economy to grow. At the core of these efforts, it will be critical to make sure those most affected by the recession have access to these jobs, and that the jobs created from these investments are quality jobs that lead to additional opportunities for further skill-building and career advancement.

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