Felix Salmon
pestering preening potentates
Chart of the day, unemployment edition
Another great chart from the people at nytimes.com: this one shows how unemployment has risen among various different segments of the population, since January 2007. Here’s what’s happened to the 12-month average employment rate for black men without a high-school degree under 25 years old:
Meanwhile, here’s the chart for white women ages 25 to 44 with a college degree:
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Yes, and when I went through the chart options, I could feel the racial tension. I am daily in conflict with people who have internalized the ideas that black Americans, poor Americans of whatever sort but certainly black ones, aren’t due “handouts.” The GOP becomes the party of the white, which is sad because traditional conservative values – which, remember, didn’t include the Southern white racists who always voted Democratic – were more humane.
One can take whatever lessons one wants from the chart. White liberals will no doubt see a confirmation of their people’s eternal villainy, ignoring of course massive white to non-white wealth redistribution through entitlement programs. Cold-hearted me looks at the chart as a confirmation of the differences in productivity across groups, with the jobs of the least productive tending to be the first ones shed.
Mike says the chart shows “confirmation of the differences in productivity across groups”. Doesn’t that just demonstrate the institutionalized lack of equality of opportunity that even “cold-hearted” Republicans have been historically (past tense emphasized) supportive?