One of the little noted accomplishments of the Biden years was bringing down the unemployment rate for Black workers to 4.8 percent in April of 2023. That

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One of the little noted accomplishments of the Biden years was bringing down the unemployment rate for Black workers to 4.8 percent in April of 2023. That is still far too high — considerably higher than the rate for whites — but it was the lowest rate on record. The racial wage differential for the median worker also fell to the lowest level ever.

Unfortunately, this low did not last long. By the time Biden left office in January, it was up to 6.0 percent. That was still low by historical comparisons, but well above the April trough.

Things have gotten much worse in the last six months. The unemployment rate for Black workers hit 7.2 percent in July, an extraordinary 1.2 percentage point increase in six months. The story is even more striking since the unemployment rate for white workers has barely budged over this period, rising just 0.2 percentage points from 3.5 percent to 3.7 percent, which is still 0.1 percentage point below the level hit last November.

Historically, high unemployment hits the groups who are most disadvantaged in the labor force hardest, especially Black workers. Their unemployment rate has typically been twice the white unemployment rate. Again, it was an impressive achievement of the Biden recovery to narrow that gap substantially. However, it looks like we are now back to the historic pattern and perhaps on the way to much worse.

I do have to give the usual warning. The monthly unemployment data for Black workers are highly erratic. This is not the fault of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The sample size for a group that is roughly 13 percent of the labor force is limited, and the response rate is lower than the overall average. BLS could increase sample sizes, but that costs money, and its budget is being cut.

This means the 7.2 percent reported unemployment rate for Black workers may be partially reversed in future months’ data. But there can be little doubt there has been a substantial rise in the unemployment rate for Black workers since Donald Trump took office. And that is not a good story.

This first appeared on Dean Baker’s Beat the Press blog.

The post The Unemployment Rate for Black Workers Rises Sharply appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

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