Yvonne Liu, at the Applied Research Center, told us about their report, Race and Recession, which includes a lot of useful information about the disparate effects of the economic crisis for different groups of Americans.
While an overall unemployment rate of just under 10% is bad regardless, that statistics hides the fact that Latinos and African Americans are experiencing even higher levels (note: the government agencies that the information comes from didn’t provide breakdowns for Asians or Native Americans, so the report was unable to show comparisons for those groups):
In a comment, thoughtcounts Z points out,
My immediate reaction…: the worst points (highest unemployment) on the “White” curve are generally around or below the best points (lowest unemployment) on the “Black” curve.
Unemployment rates for those aged 20-24:
This figure indicates what % of each racial group falls into each occupational category (the median indicates that half fall above and half fall below that level):
Median earnings for each occupational category (again, the figures represent the % of each race that have jobs in that category):
So as we see, Whites are disproportionately employed in management and professional occupations, while relatively few are employed in the service industry, whereas both African Americans and Latinos are significantly more likely to be employed in services. And while there’s a big gap between the % of Whites and Blacks in management/professional occupations, I was somewhat surprised that it wasn’t larger than it is.
Earnings broken down by both race and gender:
Assets by race:
See also: images of the downturn, job loss by region, unemployment by education level, another map of job loss by region, the dilemma of the duplex, not everyone knows there’s a recession, Detroit’s decline, job losses, gender and recession, and tips to the rich on how to be discreet during a recession.
