REPORT | They rarely see jobless rate as low as 8.1%
February's higher-than-anticipated U.S. jobless rate of 8.1 percent shook America on Friday morning. It was a stat not seen since December 1983 -- except in black America, which has had rates above 8.1 percent for all but six months since 2001.
The unemployment rate for blacks in the United States hit 13.4 percent in February, the U.S. Department of Labor reported Friday.
"Unfortunately, the black unemployment rate is typically about twice the white unemployment rate," said Algernon Austin, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute's Race, Ethnicity and Economy Program.
"In recessions, you typically see a black unemployment rate increase significantly."
About 851,000 jobs were lost in February. January's unemployment rate was 7.6 percent. About 4.4 million jobs have been cut since the recession began in December 2007.
Sun TimesI like how they date the 4.4M jobs lost to Dec. 2007. How many have been lost since it became apparent that 0Bama was going to be the president, and how many since Jan. 21.
Of course this would be giant headlines and the top story if Bush was still president.
