the following article by Arthur Delaney was posted on the Huffington Postwebsite August 15, 2018:
Lower African-American unemployment doesn’t fix a glaring racial disparity.
President Donald Trump defends himself against charges of racism by saying that not only is he not racist, but he has presided over some of the best job gains for African-Americans in U.S. history.
Trump is right that the unemployment rate for black Americans this year reached its lowest point on record. But at 6.6 percent as of July, that’s still almost twice the jobless rate for white people, which is 3.4 percent. (The overall national rate is 3.9 percent.)
The African-American unemployment rate has been roughly double the white unemployment rate for decades thanks to the country’s long history of racist policies that have excluded black people from jobs, housing and safety net benefits.
