It feels like minorities always get the short end of the stick – and in unemployment rates, it’s no different. In fact, CNN reported that as of December, the labor market is currently at 3.5%, which is described as a “historic low.” But guess which groups are still being affected the most?
Latinos and Black women.
Though the U.S. economy added an impressive 223,000 jobs into the economy – described as an “extraordinary job growth” and monumentally, the second-best year since 1939 – not all of our community is experiencing the same story.
Unemployment rates are higher now than in 2020 for Latino men and Black women
Even if the unemployment rates are finally adjusting after the pandemic, for people of color, it’s a different picture. Per CNN, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it worsened – specifically for Latino men and Black women – since pre-pandemic.
To put it in numbers: the unemployment rate for Latino men as of December 2022 is at 4%, higher than the 3.1% recorded in February 2020. This also echoes the unemployment rate for Black women, who in December 2022 had an unemployment rate of 5.5% – significantly higher than the unemployment rate of 4.8% in February 2020.
For further context: figures show that unemployment rates are either the same or lower for other groups. White women are experiencing an unemployment rate of 2.8% in December 2022, while Whites are at 3%, Asians are at 2.5%, and Latinos are at 4%, according to the same source.
What’s going on?
CNN suggests several reasons why this is affecting people of color the most. One of them is an inevitable factor that historically follows our POC community: racism.
A chief economist at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a nonprofit research and grantmaking organization, says that “even people who may not hold racist beliefs will ultimately replicate racist outcomes.”
Moving forward, we hope to see a relief in these statistics, especially since they hit home in our marginalized communities.