The Labor Department released its December jobs report today. Predictably, media coverage has been optimistic, focusing on the 200,000 jobs added by the private sector, the nation's lowest unemployment level in nearly three years, and the improving condition of small businesses.
All good news right? But buried between the lines is a different story about Black America and the labor market.
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In what's been called hopeful economic news, the nation’s unemployment rate dropped to 8.6% in November. While the new unemployment figures may make for good headlines, they ring hollow to the 14 million people currently out of work. Black Americans are hit nearly twice as hard as the rest of the nation.
According to the UC Berkeley Labor Center, 15.5% of Black people were unemployed last month. This was a slight increase from October, when unemployment in the Black community stood at 15.1%. The unemployment rate in November was 7.6% among Whites and 11.4% among Latinos. The unemployment rate for African-American teenagers hovers around a staggering 40%.
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