Business
African-American Unemployment Rate Climbed in August
The Labor Department has released the August jobs report and the unemployment figured was unchanged from July’s 9.1 percent. In addition, the economy added only 17,000 new jobs. The African-American jobless rate climbed from 15.9 to 16.7, which only strengthens the argument of Black lawmakers that there is a critical need to specifically address this problem.
The unemployment rate for Black males rose a whole percentage point to 18.0 percent and the rate for Black youths aged 16–19 jumped from 39.2 to 46.5 percent.
According to William Darity, an economist at Duke University, the Black unemployment rate may be in part attributed to more people feeling less discouraged about finding employment and reentering the workforce to jumpstart their job searches, Still, he says, it is also a sign of the discrimination that continues to exist in the labor market.
Georgia Tech Thomas Boston agrees that’s a part of the problem, particularly given the fact that Blacks comprise just 12 percent of the labor market but 22 percent of the unemployed. He also said that the unemployment burden is shifting from whites to African-Americans whose job losses are almost equal to white job gains.
“Part of it also is where Blacks are situated in the market. They have the kinds of jobs that are the first to be affected when the economy sneezes,” Boston explains. “We also have an economy that isn’t creating jobs for people with low levels of education and Blacks are heavily concentrated in that group. All of this points to an historical pattern of discrimination, which puts Blacks in a situation where they’re the first to experience downturns in the economy.”
According to the Associated Press, although employers added 117,000 jobs in July, and the unemployment rate continues to hover at 9.1 percent, there have been signs of increased consumer confidence. Americans continued to spend during the critical back-to-school season despite higher prices and Hurricane Irene’s roar up the East Coast, the manufacturing sector expanded for the 25th consecutive month and the auto industry experienced a notable boost. In addition, large and small retailers are reporting sales gains. Analysts are predicting that the economy will grow by approximately two percent in the current quarter, which is slow but better than the first half of the year, the AP reports.
