With record job losses across the country due to the covid-19 coronavirus, African American unemployment has jumped to almost 17 percent, according to The Washington Post.
“What is clear so far is that Hispanics, African Americans and low-wage workers in restaurants and retail have been hit hardest by the job crisis. Many of these workers were already living paycheck to paycheck and had the least cushion before the pandemic hit,” the Post reported. “The unemployment rate in April jumped to a record 18.9 percent for Hispanics, 16.7 percent for African Americans, 14.5 percent for Asians and 14.2 percent for whites.”
It is a trend that experts said is likely to continue with no sure end in sight.
“Low-wage workers are experiencing their own Great Depression right now,” Ahu Yildirmaz, co-head of the ADP Research Institute, told the Post.
“It’s not like turning a light switch and everything goes back to where it was in February,” said Loretta Mester, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. “We depopulated everything quickly. Repopulating it will take a lot longer.”
Since many African Americans hold low-wage jobs and are unable to work from home, they are being disproportionately affected, the report stated. It is a crisis that has touched all sectors of society according to the Post’s economic correspondent Heather Long, who tweeted info from a report.
Economists are calling on the Trump Administration to provide aid to Americans until they can begin to rebound from the worst financial crisis since The Great Depression.
“This unemployment rate should be a real kick in the pants — and maybe even the face,” economist Claudia Sahm, a former Federal Reserve staffer and expert on recessions, told the Post. “Congress has to stay the course on aid until more people are back at work.”
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Women, other people of color and those with lower levels of education have also become unemployed at higher rates due to covid-19. Experts warned that it may take years to recover.
“This is a catastrophe. When things go over a cliff, they usually they don’t recover quickly,” economics professor David Blanchflower of Dartmouth College told the Post.
