Black unemployment keeps trending higher - Dec. 4, 2009: NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- While the overall unemployment rate for Americans fell in November, the jobless gap between African-Americans and all other races actually rose, continuing a disturbing trend that has many lawmakers up in arms.
The black community has suffered the hardest during the economic downturn, with an unemployment rate that currently stands at 15.6%. That's a much higher rate than for all of the other races that the Labor Department tracks, including Hispanics (12.7%), whites (9.3%) and Asians (7.3%).
The jobless rate for blacks has also grown much faster than for other races.
The difference between the unemployment rates for blacks and whites fell to an all-time low of 3.5 percentage points in August 2007. As the economy fell into a recession, that gap rapidly grew. By April 2009, the gap hit a 13-year high, doubling to a staggering 7 percentage points.
Though the separation between white and black jobless rates has narrowed slightly since the spring, it is still trending higher, rising to 6.3 percentage points in November from 6.2 points in the previous month.
