
The Unemployment Rate for People Like You - araneae
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/11/06/business/economy/unemployment-lines.html?hp
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patio11
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I can't stand them editorially
speaking but the NYT is hands-down the best paper in the world at taking
advantage of modern web technology.

This shows, in almost painful detail, the bifurcation of the economy I was
talking about earlier. Those of us who are college educated with a few years
of experience could be excused for not knowing we are in a recession (4.3%).
New graduates have it tougher (8.X%). Folks without high school diplomas are
in total crisis.

(The highest unemployment rate, to the surprise of essentially no one: black
men 15-24 with no degree. Its 8.5%... sorry, missed a digit, 48.5%.)

~~~
kalendae
If you are a black man between 15-24 with no high school diploma, changing the
color of your skin (to white) has more positive impact than getting that high
school diploma.

~~~
heyadayo
What's even more interesting is that changing your race to Hispanic has an
almost identically positive impact as changing to white.

Are we actually that much more discriminatory (as a society) against blacks as
compared to hispanics? Is this purely racism, or is something else at work?
Perhaps it has to do with the ratio of passport/green card holders between the
two ethnicities, and the economic advantages of hiring non-citizens in low-end
jobs?

The results are clear though:

White men 15-24, no highschool: Unemployment 25.6% Black men 15-24, no
highschool: Unemployment 48.5% Hispanic men 15-24, no highschool: Unemployment
25.8%

~~~
hristov
I think you are right that the difference is immigration. A lot of hispanics
at that age range and with no high school education are migratory farm workers
that come to the US with jobs. Bad jobs but nevertheless jobs.

And of course nobody will hire black people for those jobs. Those jobs are so
hard and badly paid that they can only be performed by impoverished scared
immigrants.

And as far as racism goes I think there is a difference between the way
hispanic and black men are treated. Racists usually fear young black men and
consider them all violent criminals, so they would not give them jobs. As far
as hispanics, the usual racist stereotype of the hispanic male is somebody
that is good for a low wage menial job. So racism does not really prevent
hispanics from getting jobs, just good jobs.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Racism is a sketchy explanation. As of a year ago, native-born black americans
had 50% more unemployment than foreign-born blacks.

These racists make very fine distinctions: "I don't like African Americans.
Nigerians and Jamaicans are ok, though. So I'll interview black people, but if
they don't have a foreign accent..." [makes a 'get out of here' motion]

<http://www.bls.gov/news.release/forbrn.t01.htm>

~~~
bilbo0s
Uhh . . . dude. That's what you want.

I'm not trying to keep Americans out of jobs here, but isn't it good to
require that foreign born people have jobs before they come here? I mean, I
assume you are talking about immigrants. Why would you not want them to have
some sort of employment related Visa before they get on the plane to come here
and live?

This statistic, to me, says that the government is doing something right.
Again, not trying to open up an immigration discussion, just saying that this
statistic is a good thing. In general you want native unemployment to be
higher than foreign born unemployment or you have a problem with your
immigration program. In America Native unemployment is higher across every
demographic, which is excellent in my opinion.

Just my two cents. I'm not an immigration expert or anything, but I am smart
enough to know that I want the employable immigrants.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Uh, dude, I'm not making any immigration-related argument. All I'm saying is
that those racist employers seem to have a really narrow kind of racism: "we
hate black americans, but not black haitians or senegalese."

~~~
gaius
It's probably not racism then, but, umm, culturalism.

We don't have good vocabulary yet for distinguishing between race, culture and
nationality because for most of history, these were very strongly correlated.

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araneae
White female college graduates between 25 and 44 have the lowest unemployment
rate of any demographic group.

~~~
netcan
I think that women are more likely to leave the workforce when it is difficult
to get a job & enter it when it is particularly attractive. Extended maternity
breaks, home makers etc. Leaving the workforce is leaving the graph, neither
employed or unemployed.

~~~
alphamerik
Maybe, or perhaps or is because they are white and college educated. After
all, white male college graduates between 25 and 44 have the next lowest
unemployment rate of any demographic group.

~~~
netcan
Certainly that is the greater effect.

My comment is to describe the remaining discrepancy: Women consistently have a
lower unemployment rate across demographics.

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tybris
Looks like in 1 year time (when I'm 25) I'll double my chances of getting a
job.

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etherael
I question the definition of "people like me".

If i could pick a few attributes about which I felt least influenced my
character, race, age, education level would definitely be right up at the top.

~~~
gaius
You are not a precious and unique snowflake, and neither am I.

~~~
etherael
Be that as it may, do you seriously think if you were the exact same person,
simply hadn't finished high school and/or were a different race, you'd be a
different person?

I just don't see how race affects anything at all, maybe this is more a
specifically American thing? Official education likewise seemed a giant waste
of time to me.

~~~
gaius
In education, yes, of course I would. I'm not an incredibly motivated, dynamic
person who could make stuff happen whatever the circumstance, those people are
incredibly rare, that's why they're famous, like Richard Branson. I worked
hard at school, went to a top college, went to work in high tech, fairly
typical "geek" life. Would I be the same person now if I'd been stuck in the
small town I grew up in, working a dead-end job, surrounded by people who were
going nowhere?

I don't think my race has disadvantaged me professionally, but it certainly
had an effect in that small town when there was at most one non-white kid in
every class... My education got me out of that world and I've never looked
back.

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vaksel
you also need to take things like underemployement into the equation, the main
reason there aren't any jobs for people without a college degree, is because
people with college degree are taking jobs at 7-8 bucks an hour just to put
food on the table

~~~
rdtsc
That is probably tied into immigration and welfare policies. An illegal worker
from Mexico will pick potatoes for $4/hour, while a poor black person who is a
US citizen will probably refuse the same job even at $8/hour (or whatever the
minimum wage is these days). A black person will probably rely on welfare. An
illegal worker does not have access to the same level of welfare.

~~~
bilbo0s
The people with the highest rate of unemployment however, black men 15 - 24
without high school diplomas, are not eligible for welfare. In all 50 states,
welfare is only given to care givers. That is, to people who have custody of
children. In most cases, women.

That data kind of blows the, 'blacks will just use welfare' theory out of the
water. Unless you meant, 'black women with children will just use welfare'.
Which, come to think of it, is probably what you meant. But it just seems that
the serious unemployment is borne by and large by black men.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Actually, people of all races in that age group tend to have very high
unemployment rates.

The ability to live with your mom is (from an economic perspective) provides
the same disincentives to work as welfare.

~~~
DougBTX
And if you use the extra time to learn some programming, so much the better,
perhaps.

------
alain94040
Another interesting factoid: if you select people 25-44 with college degree,
you can improve your score by selecting women instead of men.

Who would have thought? Educated women are doing better than educated men? I
like it.

~~~
lallysingh
Time to start hunting for a sugar mama :-)

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elblanco
Tufte would be proud of this.

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EinhornIsFinkle
Thats a pretty cool interface to present all that data.

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motters
From my own observations, unemployment amongst software engineers seems to be
high.

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mojaam
Although this is depressing, it's also a good learning tool.

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_ck_
Unless I am missing something, they contradicted themselves.

The graph shows that the recession IS affecting everyone in all the groups
equally.

They are all a few percentage higher than last September, but the ratio is the
same as last September.

Instead of doing this by age, gender, race and education they should have
shown this by TYPE of job.

Then it would be very uneven.

They should do this kind of graph for health care coverage.

~~~
rdtsc
They should have also broken it down by the income level.

> They should do this kind of graph for health care coverage.

Some topics are not appropriate for public discourse as far as large media
corporations are concerned. We are not supposed to discuss the number of
bankruptcies / year due to health care costs, or how health insurance is
linked to employment and since there is a high un-employment, there is
probably a large number of un-insured individuals as well. And how on the
first accident any one of those uninsured will probably blow through their
life savings, credit card accounts and eventually declare bankruptcy.

~~~
ahlatimer
> They should have also broken it down by the income level.

Don't most unemployed people have an income of 0, or whatever their
unemployment checks are?

~~~
ericlavigne
Yes, but I would propose breaking it down by their level of median annual
income over the last 5-10 years. This would give a number, for any given
individual, would tend to change gradually over a lifetime and would not be
significantly affected by a year or two of unemployment.

This would show how much of the unemployment was affecting only those who were
already losing in the employment game.

