But the good news of the jobless rate dropping did not extend to Black workers as the new data showed their unemployment levels ticked upward last month.
CNBC: “May sees biggest jobs increase ever of 2.5 million as economy starts to recover from coronavirus”
CNN: “America’s unemployment rate falls to 13.3% as economy posts surprise job gains”
Washington Post: “Unemployment rate drops to 13 percent, as the economy picked up jobs as states reopened”
New York Times: “Unemployment in U.S. Unexpectedly Fell in May”
As if the spike in unemployment was not caused by the coronavirus pandemic that has disproportionately hurt Black people, any mentions of Black unemployment actually rising were buried deep in the respective news reports.
That was in comparison to April’s 16.7 percent Black unemployment rate rising to 16.8 percent in May.
But the rate was trending in the right direction for white people while the opposite was true for Black people, according to data from the Bureau of Labor were taking the latest jobs report to be a sign that the economy was recovering from the coronavirus pandemic that shut down an exponential number of businesses.
That has fueled suspicions that Black-owned businesses would not survive and consequently cause their employees to add to the growing Black unemployment rate.
