Unemployment remains high for African American Marylanders

The Economic Policy Institute released an issue brief today on minority unemployment in 2011, and looking forward to the end of 2012.  Yet again the data show that the unemployment rate for African Americans is significantly higher in Maryland and the rest of the country than the rate for other groups.  

Source: Annual unemployment rate data for 2007-2010 is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Data for the third quarter of 2011 is from the EPI report linked to above.

At 11.2 percent, Maryland had the lowest African American unemployment rate in the country in the third quarter of 2011—among the 25 states (including the District of Columbia) for which this rate could be determined.  However, this was significantly above the Maryland average of 7.3 percent and far above the state’s White unemployment rate of just 5.6 percent.  Out of all fifty states, only in Nevada was the White unemployment rate (11.7 percent) higher than Maryland’s African American unemployment rate.

Unfortunately, as the graph and EPI report make clear, this disparity is a longstanding problem that is unlikely to disappear any time soon.  Even as the economy recovers from the Great Recession the only way this problem will improve is if Maryland supports education and job training programs, removes barriers to employment for ex-offenders who have paid their debt to society, and otherwise encourages job growth (including state employment) across the state.