A Picture of the Jobs Crisis–in Black, White and Brown

The president has crafted a polite response to an impolite problem. Here's what the devastation looks like in black and Latino communities--so far.

By Hatty Lee, Kai Wright Sep 07, 2011

President Obama will tell us about his jobs plan tomorrow night. He’s been kind enough to schedule it such that it doesn’t interrupt either the NFL’s season opener or the Republican Party’s debate in a primary season that will last months. Based on early reports, the president has also been courteous enough to craft a plan that won’t overly upset debt-obsessed tea party Republicans. He’ll push for an extension of unemployment benefits, offer $170 billion in tax cuts and suggest less than a third of that–$50 billion–in stimulus money to actually create jobs through infrastructure projects.

As the president continues his search for unrequited love across the political isle, black workers in particular continue falling further and further outside of the economy. So we thought we’d pull together the latest numbers, as a reminder of just how far out of proportion the problem is with the response thus far. And as the graphic illustrates, while the jobs problem is worse than it’s been in generations, the search for good jobs that pay living wages is a terribly old one. (Note: Here’s why we haven’t included the uninformative data on Asian Americans.) 

–Kai Wright