President Barack Obama seems to have an aversion to the unemployed. On various jobs tours he has taken since the fall elections he has met with business leaders, students, plant works, and even community college presidents, but no one who actually needed a job,
The Washington Post reported.
Obama has taken eight trips outside of Washington since November and has not met with either groups of unemployed or those representing them. Inquiries to the White House failed to turn up one incident of even a private meeting between the president and an unemployed person, the Post said.
The director of Ohio State’s Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity said Obama has reached out to the corporate world since the election. “Where is the olive branch to the working class community, the unions, the everyday folks?” John Powell added that it’s hard “to imagine a Democratic president doing a jobs tour and not meeting with people who are out of work or unions,” the Post reported.
White House officials said the president has met with groups and companies key to bringing down the unemployment rate that is currently about 9 percent. They also said the president is committed to helping the unemployed and has worked to extend jobless benefits, the Post said.
A laid off software engineer protested outside of Intel during Obama’s recent visit to Portland, Ore. Mitch Besser said “it’s been very difficult for my family. When he makes these statements about education being what will pull you out of it, it’s very difficult to hear those statements,” he said according to the Post.