This year, Washington’s political class hasn’t merely given up on trying to fix U.S. unemployment; it’s given up on even discussing the subject. This is shameful, and not simply because the jobless rate is still two or so percentage points higher nationwide than it should be, or because the long-term unemployed have been left out to dry. No, it’s shameful because many communities across the country are still simply being ravaged by the lack of work.

Particularly the black community. Even in good times, the unemployment rate tends to be roughly twice as high for blacks as whites, if not worse. Nationwide, black workers today are facing 13.2 percent joblessness. In some large states, the rate is far worse, as shown in the graph below, which was recently posted by the Economic Policy Institute. In Michigan, it was 18.7 percent by the end of 2012. In New Jersey, Illinois, North Carolina, California, and Ohio, the rate was above 15 percent.

“Most of the improvement that we’ve seen in the unemployment rate hasn’t been due to increased job opportunities. It’s been due to people dropping out of, or never entering, the labor market because of weak opportunities,” said Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist for the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. “Most of that decline is not coming from what would really be considered meaningful improvement in the unemployment rate.”

“In addition to the substantial share who are officially unemployed, a large swath of these young, highly educated workers have either a job but cannot attain the hours they need or want a job but have given up looking for work,” said Heidi Shierholz, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.

“With aggressive fiscal stimulus we can bring the unemployment rate down rapidly; Washington has gone entirely in the other direction,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute.

An economist with the labor-focused Economic Policy Institute called the report a disaster, saying it would take five whole years for the current rate of growth to return the country to full employment.

“This is a classic ‘hold-steady’ report — enough job growth to keep the unemployment rate stable but not much more,” EPI’s Heidi Sheirholz said in a statement. “In good times, this would be fine, but at a time like this, it represents an ongoing disaster.”