Unemployment rate among African-Americans still among highest

The World

The economic crisis has been felt in most sectors of the economy, and among most communities as well. A year ago, we spoke about how one of the communities most negatively effected was the African-American community. Today we get another glimpse of that impact in the monthly report from the Labor Department. National unemployment for blacks in the third quarter of 2010 was at over 16 percent. Are we seeing a destruction of the black middle class?

Dr. Algernon Austin, director of the Program on Race, Ethnicity and Economy at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., predicts two more years of double-digit unemployment numbers, and says it may take a decade for the black community to recover. We also speak with Khalil Coleman, a education major and community organizer for young black men in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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