The Twin Cities have the highest level of racial disparity in unemployment in the country, according to a study released on Monday. The Economic Policy Institute found that African-Americans in the Twin Cities metropolitan area were 3.3 times as likely to be unemployed as whites in 2011 – the highest level of disparity among 19 major metropolitan areas in the nation.

Unfortunately, this high level of unemployment disparity between blacks and whites in our area is not new. Two years ago we blogged on an EPI study finding that back then the Twin Cities also had the highest level of unemployment disparity among 18 major metropolitan areas.