Tuesday, June 23, 2009

A Fleeting Comment on Race And Unemployment Rates



I was listening to president Obama's press conference and noticed how (around 49 minutes or so) he was asked a question about African-American unemployment rates in a way which also made him bring up the unemployment rates of Latinos and Asians and, finally, of any group.

But the fact is that unemployment rates between those groups are very different. African-American men have traditionally higher unemployment rates than almost all other groups. Asians, on the whole, tend to do better in economic terms than the rest of the population. Latino unemployment rates are higher than Anglo rates but lower than African-American rates.

This is worth pointing out, because I have started seeing on the blogs and such a treatment of all minorities as experiencing the same economic problems.