October's jobs report is out and - despite the bizarre jubilation of the mainstream media - minorities are still being hit the hardest as the economy fails to recover. Black youth unemployment is 393% higher than the national average and women's labor participation hit a record low.
The summary data table can be found here, but each of those statistics deserves some attention.
National unemployment ticked up overall, but so did the unemployment for blacks specifically. The most shocking numbers apply to the youngest sub-demographic, blacks aged 16-19. For that subset alone the unemployment rate was, again, 393% the national average at 36%. That makes a total of 43,000 fewer jobs for black youth in the past month alone.
Add to those tragic numbers the worsening reality for working American women - a demographic that lost 357,000 jobs in October and hit a record low for labor force participation at 56.9%. Blacks and women have little reason to rejoice as October's jobs report only confirms their all-too-familiar reality.
In addition to blacks and women, the young and undereducated are suffering to a degree that concerns about the social implications, which could long outlast an economic recovery, are warranted. As Derryck Green of the National Center's Project 21 black leadership network writes:
These statistics are bad. What they indicate is that the onset of adulthood is being unavoidably pushed back because entering the workforce is being delayed.
If young people can’t find work, they don’t get married. If they don’t get married, they don’t have children and start families. If they don’t start families, they don’t necessarily buy cars and houses (as well as the appliances to fill their homes). They also don’t invest in service and resources to benefit children or childrens’ futures.
Yet none of this takes into consideration that these young people are also likely having to repay student loan obligations which total more than $674 billion — up 463 percent since Obama took office.
All of this is compounded by the economic effect of ObamaCare’s premium and deductible increases are having on individuals, employers and society as a whole.
In light of the increasing pain and hardship being experienced by minorities in America's stagnant economy, the celebrations of the media here, here, here, here, here, and here are even more chilling.
Jumping for joy at the health of the financial markets and Wall Street, they have all but forgotten the people most hurt by the recession - who apparently meant nothing more to them than once-timely, now-irrelevant human interest stories.
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