Predicts Surge in Economy : Reagan Lauds Gains in Black Employment

President Reagan assured the nation in his weekly radio talk Saturday that he sees “all the parts falling in place for a new surge of robust expansion,” with particularly hopeful signs for black Americans, who he said are now employed in record numbers.

Although “we’ll have to wait for the Census Bureau to release the latest poverty figures in August to confirm the new trend,” Reagan said, “the evidence of progress seems clear.”

The President, citing signs of black advances, said: “A record number of blacks, some 10.6 million, now have jobs. Since November, 1982, the black unemployment rate has fallen by 6 1/2 percentage points, and nearly one of five new jobs generated went to a black man, woman or teen-ager. Blacks have gained an average of 45,000 new jobs every month for the past 31 months--twice the job gain rate of whites.”

Reagan, speaking from the presidential retreat at Camp David, Md., did not mention the Labor Department’s June unemployment figures, which showed the jobless rate for blacks to be 14%, down from the 15.6% recorded in May. The rate was more than double the figure for whites, which rose from 6.2% in May to 6.5% in June.

Outlook ‘Very Good’

The President predicted continuation of a period of economic expansion that he traced back to November, 1982. With employment “near its highest point in history” and inflation below 4%, he said, “the outlook on this summer day for the balance of 1985 and beyond is very good for continued low inflation, renewed economic strength and rising employment.”

Only a week out of the hospital after surgery for cancer of the colon, Reagan sounded quite his old self as he extolled the virtues of freedom as an instrument of economic, political and social progress.

Black gains, he said, “were created by the engines of enterprise . . . by people getting ahead and breaking free . . . by people who know that complete emancipation must be a spiritual struggle for brotherhood, a political struggle for participation at the ballot box and an economic struggle for an opportunity society that creates jobs, not welfare; wealth, not poverty, and freedom, not dependency.”

‘Enterprise Zones’

Reagan pledged to continue to press for passage of legislation creating so-called “enterprise zones” designed to use tax and other concessions to attract new ventures to inner cities. Those blocking this legislation “should never have the nerve to say a word about compassion again,” he said.

The President promised also to “keep pushing as hard as we can” for the Administration’s tax reform program and for legislation authorizing a three-year test of the so-called “Youth Employment Opportunity Wage” plan, which would lower minimum wage limits for teen-agers and would, Reagan said, “create some 400,000 new jobs for our youth.”

At the same time, the President restated his opposition to new taxes, “protectionist measures that raise prices” and “hare-brained ideas like ‘federally mandated comparable worth,’ a proposal that would take salary decisions out of the hands of the employers and employees and give government the power to determine what a fair salary is.”