More than 1 in 4 workers in Ward 8 are unemployed, the result of an alarming increase in the rate of joblessness that is now one of the highest of any community in the nation. The only thing more alarming is the apparent invisibility of the black unemployed to the rest of the city. 

The DC Council has not held a single hearing about it all year. I've been waiting for the opportunity to testify with ideas about unemployment, and participate in a public discourse on the topic, as have surely many other individuals and organizations, but there has been no such forum.