Black Unemployment Is 40% Above National Average

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jan 6, 7:16AM EST

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Black Unemployment Is 40% Above National Average — © Joe Raedle / Getty Images News via Getty Images

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has issued its THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION — DECEMBER 2023. The numbers were higher than expected. Unemployment was 3.7%, which is near a 50-year low. The economy added 216,000 jobs. One notable number was that Black unemployment was 5.2%, 40% higher than the overall numbers.

White unemployment was 3.5%. Among adult men, the figure was 3.5%. It was 3.3% for adult women. The figure was 3.1% among Asians and 5.0% among Hispanics. The figure for teenagers was 11.9%. These are the worst cities for Black Americans.

Several factors contribute to the higher jobless rates among black Americans compared to whites. Racism and single-adult households, where one person must balance childcare and full-time employment, are among the primary reasons, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

The American Progressive reports that the disparity between black and white jobless rates dates back to 1972 when the BLS started gathering monthly employment data. Another reason is incarceration. “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 from high school and college at a higher rate than black people.

Experts emphasize that these reasons are interconnected, forming a complex set of challenges that black Americans face when entering the workforce. It is widely agreed upon that these issues cannot be easily resolved.

A study by 24/7 Wall St. further delves into the problem at the city level, revealing cities where Black Americans encounter significant difficulties. “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.” Based on all these factors, the gulf between Black unemployment and white is unlikely to change. These are the worst states for Black Americans.

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.