Black unemployment in Ohio is 3.3 times higher than it is for whites. In Illinois, it's also 3.3 times as high. And the disparity is similar across the country.
The black unemployment rate is more than double the white rate in 20 out of the 24 states with populations large enough for accurate estimates, according to new research on unemployment by state and race for the third quarter of the year. Nationwide, while the white unemployment rate was 5.1 percent in September, the black unemployment rate was 9.2 percent.
There is a silver lining in the data, however: Things are improving.
"We're seeing more states in the third quarter where the black unemployment rate is getting below that 10 percent mark," said Valerie Wilson, director of the program on race, ethnicity and the economy for the Economic Policy Institute, which published the findings. Several states lacked estimates because of small sample sizes.
The smallest black-white unemployment gap measured was in Massachusetts, where black unemployment was still 1.5 times higher than the white rate.
The situation is somewhat better for Hispanics in the 23 states where the population is large enough to produce such estimates.
The Hispanic jobless rate is more than double the white rate in only two states. And, in one state, Hispanics are actually doing better than their white counterparts: In Washington state, Hispanic unemployment stands at 4.8 percent compared with 5.3 percent for whites.
Where things stand
With 13.6 percent unemployment, the black residents of D.C. suffer from the highest measured jobless rate of in the EPI report. (D.C. is a city, though, and is not directly comparable to a state.) Blacks in Illinois were next at 13.3 percent.
But interestingly, states that have relatively low black unemployment rates tend also to have relatively higher Hispanic joblessness numbers.
While Massachusetts was the best state for black unemployment, it was the worst for Hispanic unemployment. There, the Hispanic joblessness rate was 13.2 percent. Hispanic unemployment was lowest in D.C., home to the highest level of black unemployment.
"That's not an usual finding," Wilson says. That one minority group may appear to suffer as another seems to fare well speaks to the inequality of opportunity, she says.
Connecticut was the only other state, of the 23 with populations large enough for measurement, with a Hispanic joblessness rate of more than 10 percent. The Hispanic rate there was 11.1 percent, compared to 3.7 percent for whites.
A slow recovery
As high as minority unemployment rates are, they've been worse.
The black unemployment recovery is well on its way in at least nine states, according to EPI's analysis. The rate is already at or below pre-recession levels in six states — Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas — and is close in three more (Missouri, New York and South Carolina).
But take that with a grain of salt. Six of those nine states had some of the highest rates of black unemployment before the recession, so they are just close to those already-high levels.
Nowhere has black unemployment recovered less than Alabama. There, the current unemployment rate of 10.5 percent is nearly double — a full 5.2 points above — its pre-recession level.
Hispanic unemployment has recovered in five states — Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, New York and Washington — and is near recovery in three more (California, Florida and Texas).
