Young Blacks Face Unemployment Rates More Than Triple the National Average

2 years ago

0 Comments Say Something »

Text Size

Washington Reporter

Unemployment for 16-24-year-old black men was 34.5 percent in October, as high as it was during the Great Depression, the Washington Post reports. Young black women face similarly bleak employment numbers: 24.5 percent of them currently do not have jobs. Combined, young blacks have an unemployment rate of 30.5 percent, also equaling Depression-era numbers.

Employment status for young blacks statistically seems to be more affected by their race than their education or previous employment and income. Statistics from the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University show that lower-middle-class white teens have an easier time finding jobs than upper-middle-class black teens. Even African-Americans with college degrees have a jobless rate double that of their white peers.

Filed Under: Economy, Race Issues

Tagged: daily guidance, DailyGuidance, race, teens, unemployment

Our New Approach to Comments

In an effort to encourage the same level of civil dialogue among Politics Daily’s readers that we expect of our writers – a “civilogue,” to use the term coined by PD’s Jeffrey Weiss – we are requiring commenters to use their AOL or AIM screen names to submit a comment, and we are reading all comments before publishing them. Personal attacks (on writers, other readers, Nancy Pelosi, George W. Bush, or anyone at all) and comments that are not productive additions to the conversation will not be published, period, to make room for a discussion among those with ideas to kick around. Please read our Help and Feedback section for more info.