By Joyce Jones (BET.com) – The news that the African-American unemployment rate rose to 15.5% from 15.3% while the overall rate dropped to its lowest level in two years is disheartening. It would be easy to blame the yawning gap between the overall jobless rate of 8.8% and the Black unemployment rate on race, but according to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland), education may play a much more pivotal role in closing that gap.
“There’s no way you can look at the figures where the African-American rate is almost double that of the overall population and not at least wonder if race has a part to play in that,” he told BET.com. “But a key factor is that all of the statistics show that the less education you have, the more the recession hurts you and people need to keep that in mind.”
The correlation between education and employment is true of every race, but it is particularly so in African-American communities where the high school dropout rate is higher and college entry rates are lower. In 2008, the high school dropout rate for Blacks was 9.9%, almost double that of whites. Read the full story at BET.com.
