Jim Mahler
From today’s LA Times:
The coronavirus shutdown is widening the racial divide in unemployment numbers across the U.S. Black Americans saw their jobless claims rise to a staggering 16.8%, up a notch from 16.7% in April, according to the most recent jobs report. That’s in contrast to the nation’s overall unemployment rate, which officially ticked down to 13.3%, from 14.2% in April. Black communities have long felt a deep sense of injustice, and divergent numbers are only contributing to that, as protests continue this week over the death of George Floyd. “The financial instability has been tearing at the social fabric” of these communities, said the founder of the Black Worker Center in South Los Angeles. “It is fueling a lot of what we are seeing in this recent uprising.”