The Obama administration needs to do more to address high unemployment among blacks and Latinos.

In January, the overall unemployment rate fell to 9.7 percent, but the rate for blacks inched up to 16.5 percent and the Latino rate stood at 12.6 percent. For black men, the unemployment rate is the highest among all such categories of workers: 17.6 percent.

The stimulus money has not benefited those who need it the most. Only a tiny fraction of the funded projects has gone to minority contractors and businesses — 5.9 percent, according to the Insight Center for Community Economic Development.

In general, the administration has been reluctant to respond to the way the economic crisis has unevenly impacted racial and ethnic communities. Before the recession, the unemployment rate for blacks and Latinos hovered around 8 percent and has sharply increased since then. With fewer assets and savings compared to whites, blacks and Latinos are even harder hit when the pink slip comes.

The Obama administration should be proactive. It should set up a special task force to examine the higher than average unemployment rates in black and Latino communities and to develop strategies to support long-term recovery. The task force should also take up how to ensure that minority-owned and women-owned businesses are able to effectively compete for and win recovery contracts.

The administration should then take those recommendations and work with Congress to enact policies to ensure that all communities are able to recover from this economic crisis in due time.

C. Nicole Mason, Ph.D., is a political scientist and the executive director of the Women of Color Policy Network at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. She can be reached at pmproj [at] progressive [dot] org.