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Good evening everyone and thank you for joining us this evening.

Thank you to the Members of the CBC who are here tonight. 

Earlier today, I participated in the release of the National Urban League’s State of Black America report, which highlights the widening gap in education, employment, and wealth attainment between African Americans and white Americans.

Though African Americans have made great strides in these areas, the disparity between how much progress our community and other communities of color have made compared to that of whites continues to grow:

Black people still have double the unemployment rate of whites.

We still have half the access to healthcare.

The gap in homeownership is wider today than it was in 1990 with African-Americans twice as likely as whites to have suffered foreclosure.

One in 15 African-American men is incarcerated, compared with one in 106 white men.

And although African Americans are 13.8 percent of the U.S. population, we represent 27 percent of those living below the poverty line.

In 2013, this is not the America any of us hoped to have.

During the 113^th Congress, the CBC has made it a priority to focus on advocating for legislation that addresses unemployment in the African American community, which would undeniably have an impact on all of America.

We have also made it a priority to address poverty in this country.

With the leadership of Assistant Leader Jim Clyburn and Congresswoman Barbara Lee of California, the CBC was able to push for the National Strategy to End Poverty and the 10-20-30 plan to be included in the Democratic budget.

Both these provisions would target federal resources to the communities that need them the most.

Though the CBC Budget nor the Democratic budget failed to pass, what is most important is that we were able to make these issues and others a part of the conversation.

Without our voices at the table, they would have gone overlooked and unacknowledged.

When no one who can speak to the experiences of our community is seated the table, policies and programs that jeopardize our well-being are put on the table, and no one is there to make sure they are taken off. 

That is why your support is so important to this Caucus and to the communities we serve.

Without it, the work of this Caucus, which has always been to create opportunity for all Americans to work hard and have a chance at succeeding in their own terms, would be more difficult to do than it already is.

So on behalf of the CBC, thank you very much and please enjoy your dinner.