Black men hit hard by unemployment in Milwaukee - washingtonpost.com

Black men hit hard by unemployment in Milwaukee - washingtonpost.com: ...At this moment, Milwaukee is a hauntingly jobless place for African Americans, who are more likely to be out of work than whites, Hispanics or Asian Americans. It's a reality reflected in the Matthews home, where Radolph's wife, Daniela, is the family's provider. His mother-in-law is disabled. His wife's sister has a newborn and is unemployed, and his wife's brother, who stays with them sometimes, also has no job.

For black people in Wisconsin, the jobless numbers reached a new high in October, the month Matthews lost his job. The unemployment rate for African Americans surpassed that of every other state, reaching an average of 22 percent for the past 12 months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nationally, the unemployment rate is 10 percent, but according to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, nearly one out of every two black men in Milwaukee is not working, compared with 18.1 percent of white men and 22.1 percent of Hispanic men.

Unemployment or fear of it consumes conversations in corners of this city of 600,000, and it sounds nothing like the talk about jobs in Washington.