Labor & Employment Law

Jobs Crisis Hits People of Color Hard

By Arlene Holt Baker

While it is good news that the national unemployment rate dropped to 9 percent in January, it is important that we look deeper into the statistics to find the real story of this recession.

There is a depression in communities of color. The unemployment rate for African Americans overall is 15.7 percent, double the rate for whites. One in six African American men over age 20 (16.5 percent) is jobless as are 12.9 percent of African American women. The unemployment rate for Hispanics, at 11.9 percent, is nearly three points above the national average.

The job situation for our African American teenagers is dire. Nearly half?45.4 percent?are without jobs. That?s higher than the jobless rate at the height of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

It is past time for Congress to put job creation at the top of its agenda. America?s communities of color cannot wait for jobs. The strides made by African American workers in the 1990s are being wiped out in this current job crisis, and millions of people of color are no longer making middle-class incomes. As unemployment has grown, local tax bases have shrunk, eroding education and destroying public jobs, public services and public safety?and the communities they serve.

Saving and creating jobs alone won?t solve the ingrained economic problems of African Americans and Hispanics in devastated communities. But it?s the start we need?right now?as we continue rebuilding an economy that works for our streets, not just Wall Street.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on February 04, 2011 (boomark / email).