Posted Date: June 11, 2008

Jobless Rate Soars; Black Hit Hardest

(Taylor Media Services) The nation’s unemployment rate jumped by 10 percent last month—soaring from 5 percent in April to 5.5 percent in May. The report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics listed 8.5 million people as unemployed. The jump was the largest rise in unemployment since 1986. 
      Among all racial/ethnic groups, the jobless rate for African Americans last month was the highest standing at 9.7 percent. This compares to a Hispanic unemployment rate of 6.9 percent and a jobless rate among whites of 4.9 percent.
      Friday’s news drew an immediate response from the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for president Barack Obama who declared, “Last month, our economy lost 49,000 jobs and the unemployment rate saw the greatest rise in more than twenty years,” Obama also sought to tie the presumptive Republican Party nominee John McCain to what he labeled “failed Bush economic policies.”

 

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