Part 2: The demographics of the unemployed – May 7th
Bottom Line: The demos of the unemployed tell a much more instructive story about what's really going on in our labor market. As I do monthly, here are the government reported unemployment rates and my adjusted rate based on demographics:
Asians: 2.8% (down .3%)
White: 3.6% (flat)
Hispanic: 4.8% (down .3%)
Black: 6.6% (down .3%)
Here are the adjusted rates once you factor in the long-term unemployed, underemployed and marginally attached workers:
Asians: 5.6%
White: 7.2%
Hispanic: 9.6%
Black: 13.2%
This storyline is the best of the entire bunch this month. Here's your headline. Record low unemployment for black and Hispanic adults as all minority groups make gains in April!
Only white unemployment didn't improve in April and we've never had Hispanic unemployment sustained below 5%, or the real rate below 10%, until now. There's a lot to like and this is a reminder of why I breakout all of these stories. It'd be easy to overlook news like this when just looking at basic averages and numbers for the report. At the same time we continue to see the huge disconnects in the labor market based on demographics. Consider that the unemployment rate is 235% higher for blacks than Asians or 183% higher than for white adults. The progress is great but clearly there's still a lot of room for improvement in many majority minority communities, but the most recent report brought some hidden good news with it... In the third part of today's employment story we'll explore the fun stuff...how much more money we're making...