The Niagara Thruway billboard seems to sum up what everyone in Buffalo wants to tell President

Obama when he arrives Thursday:

"Dear Mr. President, I need a freakin job. Period."

Jeff Baker, the frustrated former owner of a small manufacturing company, and his brother

put up the sign even before they knew that Obama was headed here.

But the message rings true with Evangeline Harwell, Trudy Antwi and thousands of other

Buffalonians and Buffalo expatriates.

A region that was in decline long before the Great Recession desperately wants to tell the

White House and all of the nation's capital that it needs help for its sputtering economy.

"I would love to sit down and talk about the small-business perspective," said Baker, a

native and longtime resident of Buffalo, who envisions "a beer-jobs summit with regular

knuckleheads like me."

Obama would hear from Harwell, who said too many small businesses are suffering and too

many manufacturing jobs are going overseas.

"Something has to be done to get more jobs here," said Harwell, 52, who lost her job as a

Motorola technician in November when production was moved to Mexico. "We have to try to help

small businesses. We need to give them incentives."

Obama would hear from

Antwi, who earned bachelor's degrees in chemistry and biology from Buffalo State College, but

has had no luck finding employment.

"Many jobs are looking for people with experience," said Antwi, 24, "but how can we get

experience if we can't get a job?"

And Obama would hear an earful from Terrence Gidney, who sells scrubs to the health care

industry from his small business in Main Place Mall.

"The banks aren't lending," said Gidney, 51, who owns Affordable Scrubs & Stuff. "I've been

doing business with two banks, and I can't even borrow a lousy $5,000. There's no money for

businesses to advance and grow."

Welcome to Buffalo, Mr. President.

"If the country is in this perpetual unemployment crisis," Baker said, referring to his

billboard slogan, "nothing else matters."

Some signs indicate the economic picture for metro Buffalo Niagara is improving, but the

region continues to lag behind many other parts of the country.

The unemployment rate for Erie County was 8.3 percent in March, the most recent month for

which data is available, an improvement from the 8.5 percent rate in March a year ago,

according to the state Labor Department.

Eighty percent of the area's job losses during this recession have been in the

manufacturing sector, said John Slenker, the Labor Department's regional economist in Buffalo.

"For Western New York, this has turned into an old-fashioned manufacturing recession,"

Slenker said.

But unlike much of the rest of the country, this region still hadn't fully recovered from

the economic downturn of the early 2000s, because the Buffalo area is so heavily reliant on

manufacturing.

"Western New York tends to lag the nation in coming out of recessions," Slenker said.

A new report backs that up.

Of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the country, the Buffalo Niagara region ranked

76th in median household income in 2008, according to the Brookings Institution report.

Household income in the region fell 4 percent from 2000 to 2008.

The region's poverty rate — 13.3 percent — is slightly higher than the national

average.

And in some ways, Brookings points out, industrial areas, like Buffalo, are "the most

demographically disadvantaged of the metropolitan types."

The population is slower-growing, less diverse and less educated than the nation as a

whole.

It also has an older population than the other large metro areas, Brookings observed.

"If nothing else, Obama's visit has sparked a much-needed discussion about the Buffalo

economy, said Andrew J. Rudnick, president of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership.

"We have, still, a great number of job seekers, unemployed for a longer period of time and

searching more intensely for jobs," said Colleen W. Cummings, director of employment and

training for the Buffalo Employment Training Center, where Harwell and Antwi were job-hunting

Tuesday.

If given the chance, Rudnick said he would urge the president to make sure a second

economic stimulus bill sends the money directly to businesses and construction projects

instead of passing the money through layers of government.

Those governments, Rudnick said, used the cash "significantly to plug budget holes, as

opposed to stimulating the economy."

"I wish I could speak to the president for a minute," said Gidney, the Main Street store

owner. "He should be coming right here. If he's giving a "Main Street' address, how can I be

overlooked on Main Street? It's frustrating."

Baker, the guy who put up the sign, understands.

Baker's former company, Adirondacks Blanket Works, employed slightly more than 20 people in

Amsterdam, N.Y.

He moved from Buffalo to the Albany area 10 years ago to start the company and was hit hard

when he was forced to close it 15 months ago.

"The banks just refused to work with us," he said. "It was personally devastating."

Baker, who has been doing freelance marketing work since the company closed, said his

frustration with politicians and financial institutions has only grown — and he decided

to show it.

Baker, 48, and his brother, Scott, decided to boil down their message to a basic theme

— "I need a freakin job." They set up a Web site — inafj.org — and took out

the billboard ad to spread the word.

They paid $5,500 to rent the billboard — visible from the southbound Niagara Thruway,

near Smith Street — for 30 days beginning Monday.

They put the ad up in Buffalo because it is the brothers' hometown and they thought area

residents would appreciate their message.

The brothers had to book the billboard about a month in advance, so they were thrilled to

find out last week that Obama would be coming to Buffalo.

"We got preposterously lucky," Baker said. "It makes us look smarter than we are."