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Black Women See Steepest Decline in Unemployment during May

By Boyce Watkins, PhD on Jun 8th 2010 5:15PM
Filed under: Personal Finance, Dr. Boyce Money, News, The Economy

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African American women may have some reasons to celebrate during the month of June. Comparing whites and blacks across genders, black women saw their unemployment rate decline the most among all groups, dropping by nearly 10 percent (1.3 percentage points). The unemployment rate for the month of April (released in early May), was 13.7 percent, and the unemployment rate for the month of May (released this week) is 12.4 percent. This data was obtained from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The unemployment gap between black and white women also took a nosedive this month. While black women saw their unemployment rate drop dramatically, white women saw no change at all. The unemployment rate for white women over the age of 20 remained at 7.4 percent. However, black women still have an unemployment rate that is 67 percent higher than white women, so a dramatic gap still exists.


The unemployment picture was slightly better for nearly every group. Black men saw a five-percent drop (.9 points) in the unemployment rate, going from 18 percent to 17.1 percent. Among each of the four groups measured (black/white, men/women), black men continue to have the highest levels of unemployment. Additionally, black men have an unemployment rate that is nearly twice as high as that of white men. White male unemployment dropped from 9.2 percent to 8.8 percent last month.

Black teenagers have an unemployment rate that is roughly 52 percent higher (12.9 percentage points) than white teens (37.3 percent vs. 24.4 percent). Their unemployment rate remained unchanged, which concerns many civil rights leaders as we head into the summer. When youth are out of school and jobless, this can lead to additional violence in urban communities.

Overall, black unemployment dropped from 16.5 percent to 15.5 percent, but black unemployment is still 76 percent (6.7 percentage points) higher than white unemployment, which dropped from 9 percent to 8.8 percent. I am sure the Obama Administration will brag about these numbers, since making some type of progress is always worthy of a good press release. All the while, one hopes that perhaps at some point, it might no longer be seemingly illegal for an administration to target economic policy for groups that have been hit the worst by the recession. Even when times are good for black folks, they are still relatively bad. Double digit unemployment should never be acceptable for any group.


Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and a Scholarship in Action Resident of the Institute for Black Public Policy. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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