Black unemployment hits highest rate in more than a decade
By Rafael Bernal - 06/05/20 11:41 AM EDT
Black unemployment hit its highest rate in a decade in May, despite an economy-wide reduction in unemployment after coronavirus-driven record highs in March and April.
President Trump Friday touted a better-than-expected jobs report, which showed a 13.3 percent unemployment rate in May, surprising economists who'd predicted that number would rise as high as 19 percent.
"What we're announcing today is a great tribute to equality, you know, we have our jobs back," Trump said at a Rose Garden press conference on the official Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) employment summary released Friday.
"Just prior to the China plague that floated in, we had numbers, the best in history for African American, for Hispanic American and for Asian American and for everybody," said Trump.
But for black workers, the May unemployment rate was 16.8 percent, a slight uptick from the 16.7 unemployment rate in April, according to BLS numbers.
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https://thehill.com/latino/501325-black-unemployment-hits-highest-rate-in-more-than-a-decade
