African America’s July Jobs Report – 7.4%

Overall Unemployment: 4.3% (4.4%)

African America Unemployment: 7.4% (7.1%)

Latino America Unemployment: 5.1% (4.8%)

European America Unemployment: 3.8% (3.8%)

Asian America Unemployment: 3.8% (3.6%)

Previous month in parentheses.

Analysis: Overall unemployment dropped 10 basis points. This returns to matches a 16 year low. African and Latino both saw increases of 30 basis points in their unemployment rates, while Asian and European America’s change was negligible.

African American Male Unemployment: 7.0% (6.3%)

African American Female Unemployment: 6.5% (6.8%)

African American Teenage Unemployment: 23.3% (21.1%)

African American Male Participation: 68.0% (67.5%)

African American Female Participation: 62.5% (62.4%)

African American Teenage Participation: 30.4% (30.8%)

Analysis: African American Females remain a stagnant group in both unemployment and participation rate. African American Males saw quite a rise in their unemployment rate, but with a strong recovery in participation rate after two stagnant months. African American Teenagers saw a step back as their participation rate took a slight hit and unemployment rate rose over 200 basis points. For such a volatile group, this was on the light side.

African American Male-Female Job Gap: 989 000 jobs (945 000 jobs)

CONCLUSION: The overall economy added 209 000 jobs in July. This exceeded many economists expectations and marks 82 straight months of job growth. African America saw a job increase came in at 41 000, a fifth straight month of job gains. This was a significant pickup after a paltry June. The country maybe at full employment, but African America is far from it. It is questionable whether or not African America simply has the infrastructure to spur a massive job growth that would put it in line with the rest of the country. Participation rates for Males recovered, but the overall needle continues to be stagnant. African America’s participation rates trails European American by 40 basis points and Asian America by 170 basis points meaning significant economic stimulus is being lost on a monthly basis. A bigger issue is understanding the wage growth within the group. The BLS does not track earnings by race, but the overall sits at 2.5 percent so likely based on other African America economic trends, African America is bringing up the rear there as well compounding the problem.

African America currently needs 615 000 jobs to match America’s unemployment rate. A increase of 7 000 from June.