This week, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton met with 15 members of the N.J. Black Mayors’ Alliance for Social Justice to discuss issues important to their communities. After the event, the Mayors’ Alliance endorsed Clinton for president.

The mayors discussed issues important to them, including the economy. As the nation comes back from the worst downturn since the recession, the elected officials said the poor and disadvantaged have not benefited. In many New Jersey cities, more than a third of minority adults are unemployed, even when the nation is doing well financially. Data from a 2015 U.S. Census study show that the income equality gap in the Garden State is among the worst in the nation.

“The growing gap between the very wealthy and the poor, the disadvantaged and the middle class is a calamity that threatens the very existence of democracy in America,” said Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka, chairman of the Black Mayors’ Alliance. “The fact that anyone takes Donald Trump seriously and that he has become a serious candidate for president is symptomatic of what will happen to our nation if income inequality continues to get worse. Hillary Clinton offers our best chance to achieve economic and social justice in America.”

Clinton expressed her support for the campaign of the Black mayors to expand job training and apprenticeship programs targeted to sectors with job growth, to strengthen school vocational programs, to expand support for MWBEs and to strengthen re-entry programs for ex-offenders. She also supports increasing the minimum wage in New Jersey.

During the roundtable, Clinton discussed her commitment to criminal justice reforms and addressing gun violence, building upon President Barack Obama’s progress and making college affordable.

“Hillary Clinton has a real record of fighting for disenfranchised and minority communities,” Logan Township Mayor Frank Minor, vice-chairman of the Black Mayors’ Alliance said. “Her first job out of law school wasn’t with a fancy corporate firm, but with the Children’s Defense Fund investigating young people incarcerated in adult jails. As first lady, she helped expand health care for over eight million kids, in the Senate she fought for equal pay and comprehensive background checks for would-be gun buyers and as president she will continue to stand by us.”