The black unemployment rate is 15.6 percent, up from 15.4 percent in June. The black jobless rate is nearly twice that of whites (8.6 percent).
Black teens have the highest unemployment rate, 40.6 percent.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the economy lost 131,000 jobs last month, primarily 143,000 temporary Census jobs. Private employers added just 71,000 jobs.
On the first Friday, the bubbly Christina Romer, chair of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, typically paints a rosy scenario about the jobs report. With a smiley face, Romer tells the American people not to worry about the numbers. We are making “substantial progress.” Yeah, really :-).
But Romer’s days are numbered. She is leaving the White House and heading back to UC-Berkeley, where she was a professor of economics.
As the saying goes, those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Romer can’t reconcile her prediction that the stimulus package would prevent the unemployment rate from rising above eight percent.
Well, the Recovery Act was passed, 62 percent of the money has been spent, and the unemployment rate continues to hover in the double-digits.
Indeed, Moody’s Economy.com forecasts the unemployment rate “will peak at 10.1% in the second half of 2011.”
