Black Unemployment

There's much more to the story than simply the number of jobs added.

While in recent years the trajectory for graduating Black college students in the job market hadn’t been promising, the numbers are telling a different story in 2022.

While some politicians seem to think 90's nostalgia reboots mean bringing back tough-on-crime rhetoric, evidence suggests that addressing persisting economic disparity is one way to reduce gun violence.  

Not only did the Black unemployment rate in December jump to more than twice that of white people, but Black workers -- who already have long had the highest rate of all demographics -- saw their levels of joblessness grow while everybody else's dropped.

Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh sees the legislation as an essential pathway to improving opportunities for workers and families. Walsh says the Build Back Better framework was an opportunity to address some of the significant issues that surfaced during the pandemic, particularly as it pertains to Black workers and their families.   

A closer look at the data and statistics reveals some of the reasons why the Black unemployment rate is always the highest. And they're far from the common perceptions that are often rooted in racism.

In yet another indication that Black America was being left behind by the country's economic recovery, the jobs report for August showed that the Black unemployment last month rate surged while joblessness for every other group fell.

The July jobs report is being hailed as "strong" in part because the Black unemployment rate dropped by a full percentage point, but economists said exponentially more Black workers "left the workplace" than those who were actually hired last month.

The Black unemployment rate rose during President Joe Biden's first full month as labor data suggested most of the jobs gains in February went to white workers.

Black women saw their rate of unemployment in January inch up by a small but meaningful increment as they "are still being left behind by the recovery," according to a recent report on the economy.

The good news of the jobless rate dropping did not extend to Black workers as new data shows their unemployment levels ticked upward last month. 

Black unemployment has risen yet again for at least the third straight month, according to the January 2020 jobs report.