Middle class America is vanishing and unless the nation creates an economic agenda focused on equality, it could be lost forever, according to the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

In order to maintain its existence, we need to expeditiously reinvigorate our economic equality. There is no time to waste. We are at risk. American households and small businesses are threatened to make ends meet. Now, is the time if we want to start reshaping our families, businesses, and economy, said Jackson.

Jackson, who is hosting his 15th annual Wall Street Project in New York City, is focusing on ways to make things better for America's beleaguered middle class. The event, which ends Friday, focuses on bringing  everyone to the table in a bid for economic fairness. The founder and president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition sat down with NewsOne to discuss why economic equality is needed more than ever in the United States.

NewsOne: The theme of this year's Wall Street Project sounds similar to what President Barack Obama talked about in his State of the Union Address. What are your concerns regarding this country's middle class?

Jesse Jackson: There are clear patterns of discrimination against Blacks and Latinos. The big banks targeted Blacks and Latinos with toxic packages of subprime predatory lending. Your house is your first small business. It's where your investment is and [where] our greatest asset is. The wiping out of millions of homes took away Black and Brown wealth. It drove poverty, it drove unemployment, it drove people to food stamps.

The Black public sector middle class teachers, policeman, firemen, and post office workers, those jobs have been on the decline but there hasn't been a corresponding increase in the private sector. What is especially painful is government policy bailed out the banks without making them make reinvestments for rebuilding. The result is 53-million Americans are food insecure, 50-million Americans are in poverty, 44 million are on food stamps, 26 million are looking for a job.  We must renew the economy from the bottom up, not top down.

NewsOne: How do you correct the issues that have negatively affected the middle class?

Jackson: The major companies got bailed out by the government so the victims should get bailed out by the government. The lack of oversight was what allowed the banks to run amok. The bankers who drove homeowners into foreclosure and churches into foreclosure never faced a judge. They faced small fines like Countrywide, but the fines did not correspond to what they stole. The fines became the cost of doing business as oppossed to a detterent. You really need a renewed commitment for the direct investment of jobs at the bottom.

You are not going to revive the unemployment of 26 million Americans with tax cuts. There was a direct jobs program from the Rooselvelt administration in the 1930s. The Justice Department has set up a task force to investigate the banks and the mortgage crisis but that's a little too late. Whenever they report they will report the obvious. It will be too late to impact the people who need the help the most. We've known about mortgage fraud for four years.

SOURCE: NewsOne

Jeff Mays