The New York Times has an interesting interactive infographic that let’s you select your race, gender, age, and level of education and see the jobless rate for your category.
For college educated white men between 25 and 44 (like me), the jobless rate is only 3.9%. College educated black men in the same age group, it’s 8.3%.
The Jobless Rate for People Like You
(via Flowing Data, recommended by Erik in the comments of this post)
November 14, 2009 at 6:29 am
“For college educated white men between 25 and 44 (like me), the jobless rate is only 3.9%. College educated black men in the same age group, it’s 8.3%.”
I straight up don’t buy this, and I have a hard time believing that you do.
November 14, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Which part don’t you buy? Did the Times lie during the production of the graph? Did the Bureau of Labor Statistics err in data collection? Is the actual unemployment rate not what you think it should be?
November 14, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Yes, which part don’t you buy?
The official unemployment rate tends to be much lower than the real unemployment rate. See http://www.mint.com/blog/finance-core/a-visual-guide-to-the-financial-crisis-unemployment-rates/comment-page-1/
My rule of thumb is to double the official rate.
I think this little widget is most interesting as a way to compare different groups of people. I don’t think it’s surprising that college educated black men are having a harder time finding work than college educated white men.
If the 3.9% (or 7.8%) number seems low remember people who went back to school full time because they couldn’t find jobs and those who are underemployed.
I don’t think the way they’ve got the ages broken up is useful at all.