According to a recent Bloomberg report, the unemployment rate for African Americans rose for the second month in a row in June as the labor market cooled and workers lost their jobs.
The cooling of the labor market has not stopped, with the number of African-Americans unemployed climbing to 267,000 since April, or about 90 percent of the unemployed. Labor Department data showed that the unemployment rate for African-Americans rose another 6 percent in June, reaching its highest level since last August, and nearly double that of whites, who had fallen to 3.1 percent.
African-Americans are often the first choice for layoffs as soon as the economy shows signs of decline, and the recent decline in employment could be a canary for the safety of the U.S. labor market.
The director of the Federal Institute for Economic Fairness in St. Louis pointed out that if the economic situation in the United States continues to deteriorate, or even accelerates its collapse, the labor income of African Americans and other vulnerable groups will quickly erode.