As simple as it is to blame President Obama, it’s not entirely his fault the recovery is lackluster although he must carry some of the blame.  If you look at the job picture in detail, there are several interesting facts to be found.  First off, overall black unemployment jumped to 15%.  I’m sure that’s not what Mr Obama had in mind when he made history becoming the first black President of the Country.  Unemployment among college educated whites is 3.9%.  Although great disagreement among economists on the definition of full employment, I have always believed that anywhere between 3 and 5 percent makes sense, meaning that college educated whites are still doing ok in America.  Among college educated blacks, the unemployment rate is 6.8%, higher than for whites but far better than the overall 15% black figure and there is evidence that gap is continuing to narrow.  Overall white unemployment is at 6.9%.  What the unemployment figures show clearly, to no ones surprise, is disparity of wealth is directly related to the level of one’s education.  We are no longer the manufacturing powerhouse we once were.  Manufacturing jobs have been disappearing at an alarming rate.  Our manufacturing centers have not evolved.  We can only hold on to manufacturing jobs if we are better trained and better equipped than the rest of the world.  New, cheap sources of labor are still out there and we absolutely can’t compete with that, given what exists today.  That may turn around once those countries start paying more for labor as their economies grow stronger but until then, the only answer is to undergo a drastic change in the US labor force.  People must be trained and educated in the areas in which they are needed, i.e. engineering, service industries, technology, healthcare.  Despite what you may hear and see on TV, coal and coal mining is not the future of this country.  It’s like reverting to horses and buggies.  That ship has sailed.  If we refuse to move forward, we will find ourselves a second-rate power twenty-five years down the road.  We must demand more from our students; not on tests but in the practical sense.  We must prepare them for careers that match the positions available.  It’s simple common sense.  To sit around and expect that pouring money into the economy is going to jump-start things, is naive and foolish.  When the money’s spent, you’re back to the drawing board.  Two stimulus packages have borne that out.