For Immediate Release: Thursday, April 28, 2011
Contact: Phoebe Silag or Karen, news@epi.org 202-775-8810

African American unemployment in North Carolina is significantly higher than white unemployment, a new Economic Policy Institute (EPI) Issue Brief finds.  In 2010, the average unemployment rate for African American North Carolinians was 17.2%, while the average unemployment rate for white North Carolinians was 8.6%.  African American North Carolinians also experienced unemployment higher than the national African American unemployment rate, which averaged 15.9% in 2010.  At the beginning of the Great Recession, the unemployment rate for African Americans in North Carolina was 8.1%.

Distressed North Carolina: Unemployment rate higher for African Americans in uneven jobs recovery by EPI researchers Mary Gable and Algernon Austin also explains that the high rate of unemployment among African American workers is particularly disturbing in light of the fact that 21% of the state’s population is African American.