Black Unemployment Rate 75% Higher Than White Jobless Figure

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jul 11, 11:25AM EDT · Published Jul 9, 11:30AM EDT

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Black Unemployment Rate 75% Higher Than White Jobless Figure — © Spencer Platt / Getty Images News via Getty Images

The jobless figures for June were better than expected. They certainly do not signal the start of a recession. The economy added 372,000 jobs, and unemployment was 3.6% according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION — JUNE 2022. Authors of the report summed up the numbers: “The unemployment rate was 3.6 percent for the fourth month in a row, and the number of unemployed persons was essentially unchanged at 5.9 million in June.”

The unemployment rate varied substantially by race. In June, the rate among adult men was 3.3%. Among adult women, the figure was the same. Among whites it was also 3.3%. Among Hispanic, the figure was 4.1%. The rate among Black Americans was 5.8%. This is 75% higher than the figure for whites.

The reasons Black Americans have higher jobless rates than whites fall into several categories. The Economic Policy Institute reports that among the primary reasons are “racism” and single adult households where one person tries to care for children and hold a full-time job at the same time.

The American Progressive reports that the spread between Black and white jobless rates goes back to 1972 when the BLS started to gather monthly employment data. It gives incarceration, the rate of which is higher among Blacks than whites as another reason. “Mass incarceration plays a significant role in the lower labor force participation rate for African American men.” Educational attainment is another reason. Whites tend to graduate both high school and college at a higher rate than Blacks.
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None of these reasons can be taken alone, according to many experts. They represent a web of problems Black Americans face as they try to enter the workforce. One thing almost all experts agree on is that they will not go away.

A study done by 24/7 Wall St. last year shows the deep problems can be further explained at the city level. Among the Worst Cities for Black Americans: “Black residents in these metro areas are much less likely to hold a high school diploma or college degree than white residents. Lower levels of high school attainment can drive down wages and make it more difficult to find a job.”

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Based on all these factors, the gulf between Black unemployment and white is unlikely to change.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.