We know that the economic recovery’s effects have been unevenly felt. The recovery has been kind to those who invested in certain stocks or whose title begins with the word “chief.” It’s been less charitable to certain groups, like African American workers, whose unemployment rates have lingered in the double-digits for most of the past eight years.
For the first time since 2007, the national unemployment rate for African Americans dipped below 10 percent in the second quarter of 2015, according to the Labor Department. Despite that improvement, at 9.5 percent, it’s still nearly twice the national average of 5.3%, and more than double the 4.6% rate for whites.
Overall, only 11 states had African American unemployment rates below 10%, according to an analysis by Valerie Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy. Only eight states have seen unemployment rates for black workers fall below pre-recession levels. In Alabama, the African unemployment rate is more than twice what it was pre-recession: 10.9%, compared with less than 5% throughout 2007.
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