Washington, January 16: The unemployment gap between white Americans and the minorities has dramatically increased during the recent recession, according to a new report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
According to official figures 9.7% of American adults were unemployed at the end of 2009. But the percentage of whites who were unemployed at year’s end — 8.1% — was well below the national average, while African-Americans and Hispanics saw rates of 15.5% and 12.4%, respectively, the report said.
Though the national unemployment rate for each group roughly doubled between the end of 2007, when the recession kicked off, and the end of 2009, there was noticeable rate disparity along racial lines in certain states, according to EPI analyst Kai Filion.
In five US states among the worst-affected by the recession — Alabama, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and South Carolina — the unemployment rate for black workers is forecast to exceed 20 percent.
The study predicts that the unemployment rate for white workers will have grown by 5.0 percentage points from the beginning of the US recession in December 2007 to the third quarter of 2010.
———Agencies