Post by ck4829 on Dec 22, 2016 0:34:37 GMT
After far too much bad news about unemployment in Illinois and the nation, 2016 seems to have brought a turnaround.
Unemployment has consistently fallen in most portions of the state. More people are finding work in their fields. The number of people still without jobs is below 5.5 percent in Illinois, and even lower on average nationwide.
Those are certainly reasons to celebrate.
At least, if you are white.
While the numbers look good on the surface, more than a cursory glance shows the unemployment rate for the state’s black workers was an astonishing 14.2 percent at the end of the third quarter of the year. For whites, the jobless rate was 4.9 percent for the same period — 9.3 percentage points less than their African American counterparts.
Illinois has the unfortunate distinction of having the highest unemployment rate in the nation for black workers, not to mention the highest disparity between blacks and whites.
The next-closest state, Pennsylvania, has an 11.6 percent jobless rate for blacks and 4.4 percent for whites.
Although these states show the striking nature of the disproportionate rates, they are far from alone. In general, most states have unemployment rates that are twice as high for blacks as they are for whites.
Although the unemployment rate for black teenagers has fallen significantly since 2007, it is still six times the national jobless average and at 31.5 percent is almost double that of white teens.
It shows how endemic the problem really is.
Educational opportunities and access to job training programs such as apprenticeships can explain some of the reasons, but they are not the only answers to the issue. Even when broken down by educational attainment, unemployment is about half as high for whites as it is for blacks. For workers with no high school diploma, unemployment for whites averages 6.9 percent compared to 16.6 percent for blacks.
Although there is less ethnic division for those with a college degree, the average weekly pay for a black college graduate was $895 in 2014 — less than Hispanics and about $230 a week less than whites.
“While it is widely reported that the black unemployment rate is far higher than the white unemployment rate, there are important differences in the experience of unemployment by race,” according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “These differences are likely to make the experience even worse for black Americans than for whites. Differences in unemployment rates are themselves significant, but they mask the fact that black unemployment is often worse than white unemployment.”
William Spriggs, an economics professor at Howard University, tells the Philadelphia Tribune there is a tendency not to talk about blacks as workers, instead considering them part of an “underclass.”
“The notion of the white working class implicitly embodies a view of white privilege. It implies that things are supposed to be different for them, that they aren’t the same, that they aren’t going to face the same pressures,” Spriggs told the newspaper.
myjournalcourier.com/news/103764/editorial-below-surface-lies-a-disparity-in-joblessness
Unemployment has consistently fallen in most portions of the state. More people are finding work in their fields. The number of people still without jobs is below 5.5 percent in Illinois, and even lower on average nationwide.
Those are certainly reasons to celebrate.
At least, if you are white.
While the numbers look good on the surface, more than a cursory glance shows the unemployment rate for the state’s black workers was an astonishing 14.2 percent at the end of the third quarter of the year. For whites, the jobless rate was 4.9 percent for the same period — 9.3 percentage points less than their African American counterparts.
Illinois has the unfortunate distinction of having the highest unemployment rate in the nation for black workers, not to mention the highest disparity between blacks and whites.
The next-closest state, Pennsylvania, has an 11.6 percent jobless rate for blacks and 4.4 percent for whites.
Although these states show the striking nature of the disproportionate rates, they are far from alone. In general, most states have unemployment rates that are twice as high for blacks as they are for whites.
Although the unemployment rate for black teenagers has fallen significantly since 2007, it is still six times the national jobless average and at 31.5 percent is almost double that of white teens.
It shows how endemic the problem really is.
Educational opportunities and access to job training programs such as apprenticeships can explain some of the reasons, but they are not the only answers to the issue. Even when broken down by educational attainment, unemployment is about half as high for whites as it is for blacks. For workers with no high school diploma, unemployment for whites averages 6.9 percent compared to 16.6 percent for blacks.
Although there is less ethnic division for those with a college degree, the average weekly pay for a black college graduate was $895 in 2014 — less than Hispanics and about $230 a week less than whites.
“While it is widely reported that the black unemployment rate is far higher than the white unemployment rate, there are important differences in the experience of unemployment by race,” according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “These differences are likely to make the experience even worse for black Americans than for whites. Differences in unemployment rates are themselves significant, but they mask the fact that black unemployment is often worse than white unemployment.”
William Spriggs, an economics professor at Howard University, tells the Philadelphia Tribune there is a tendency not to talk about blacks as workers, instead considering them part of an “underclass.”
“The notion of the white working class implicitly embodies a view of white privilege. It implies that things are supposed to be different for them, that they aren’t the same, that they aren’t going to face the same pressures,” Spriggs told the newspaper.
myjournalcourier.com/news/103764/editorial-below-surface-lies-a-disparity-in-joblessness
