A College Education Does Nothing to Close the Racial Unemployment Gap

In 2009 the nation’s unemployment rate rose to an annual average of 9.3 percent. This was up from 5.8 percent in 2008. But as the old saying goes, when the American economy catches a cold, black Americans get a fever. For blacks, the unemployment rate rose from 10 percent in 2008 to 14.8 percent in 2009. Nearly 18 percent of black men were unemployed. For black teenagers, the unemployment rate was just under 40 percent.

At all levels of education the racial gap in unemployment rates persists, but a college education, as expected, still does wonders in lowering the overall unemployment rate for African Americans. In 2009 African-American high school graduates had an unemployment rate of 14 percent. For African-American four-year college graduates, the unemployment rate of 7.3 percent is about half the rate for black high school graduates.

A college degree is an important force in lowering the overall unemployment rate for blacks. But it does not come close to eliminating the racial gap in unemployment rates. When we break down the unemployment figures by educational attainment, the ratio of black unemployment to white unemployment is actually higher for college graduates than it is for blacks and whites with lower levels of education. Blacks who dropped out of high school are 1.5 times as likely to be unemployed as similarly educated whites. Blacks who are high school graduates are 1.6 times as likely to be unemployed as whites with the same level of education. For college graduates, blacks are more than 1.7 times as likely to be unemployed as similarly educated whites.

Copyright © 2010. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. All rights reserved.