07 November 2005

Unemployment

Two quick points to ponder.

Adjusted for education, unemployment rates (see Table 608) for Asians are often lower than unemployment rates for whites, and unemployment rates for Hispanics consistently split the difference between the unemployment rates for whites and for blacks (who typically face education adjusted unemployment rates double those of whites). This is one reason that we are unlikely to see Paris style riots by immigrants in the United States, and instead have seen many riots born of deep frustration with societal discrimination in African-American communities in the United States.

Well under half of the unemployed in the United States benefit from receive unemployment insurance payments. (Same Source, Table 610). Our social safety net is thin indeed when it comes to the unemployed (whose insurance payments are, by the way, taxable income).

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