Black unemployment rocketed to 11.2 percent in February, compared to 5 percent for whites.
This comes as the Bush administration is claiming a job-growth surge in February is proof the U.S. economy is “robust.”
Unemployment for black men 20 years and older stood at 10.9 percent and for women 9.1 percent. Black teenagers 16 to 19 years old also were impacted as unemployment was recorded at 31.5 percent. The overall unemployment rate stood at 5.4 percent.
Over the last six months of 2004, the country’s unemployment rate had hovered between 5.4 and 5.5 percent. The number of long-term unemployed, people who have been out of work about seven months or longer, remained at 1.6 million, a figure that represents one in five of the unemployed.
The number of multiple jobholders also went up to 5.5 percent from 5.3 percent in February, increasing by 432,000 to 7.7 million the number of persons who are holding more than one job.