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Percentage of Unemployed Black College Grads Twice That of White Counterparts

The number of Blacks who graduated from college and are now unemployed sits at 7.2 percent, which is almost twice the rate of Whites and is also higher than that of Hispanic and Asian grads, the Chicago Sun Times reports.

The numbers, released by the U.S. Labor Department, also reveal the unemployment rate for Hispanic and Asian graduates – both at 5 percent – were higher than White grads, who had a jobless rate of 3.8 percent. The disparity could partly be due to the high Black populations in some of the U.S. cities hardest hit by the economic crisis, Algernon Austin, director of the race, ethnicity and economy program at the Economic Policy Institute, told the Sun Times.

But Austin also warns that one can’t just blame the numbers on the recession, because even when the economy was doing well, the gap between Whites and all other races still existed.

“It looks pretty clear that there’s discrimination in the labor market,” Austin told the paper. 

 

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