Minorities in the recession
September 25, 2009
In August of this year, the U.S. unemployment rate reached 8.9%. But all the way back in December of 2007, in the very first month of the current recession, the African American unemployment rate was already at 8.9%. During a September 23 statement for the record before Congress, Algernon Austin, director of EPI’s Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy, discussed how minority communities suffer from high unemployment even in good times, and outlined the policies needed to address the long-term economic needs of these communities.

