The New York Times has an absolutely top notch interactive feature that lets you look at unemployment rates for various demographics. While I sometimes find myself getting a bit stressed at how high the unemployment rate is, when I punch in my age, sex, race etc, I find that my unemployment rate is 3.9%. While that makes me feel a bit more at ease for myself, the fact of the matter is, our economy is in a world of hurt right now with the general unemployment rate over 10%.
Anyway, I highly recommend checking out the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/11/06/business/economy/unemployment-lines.html
Update:
As I try different variables in the tool, it’s absolutely SHOCKING to see how much the unemployment rate varies by both race and sex. If you are African American, male, between 15 and 24, and have not finished high school, your unemployment rate is 48.5%. White males in the same category are at 25.6%. That is horrible. One other observation, is that people who completed college are faring much better in this economy. They have the lowest unemployment rates of all groups with most in the 3.X% range.
I tried this tool on NY Times over the weekend and it gave a low percentage for my age/sex range. I think what’s missing is the type of profession you are in. I know that a lot of young attorney’s are getting laid off and a good percentage of attorney’s aren’t able to find work. The figure shown by the calculator is less than the 10% but a lot further from the truth.
48.5% to 25.6%? Wow… that is pretty bad. I guess Race is still a factor.
It’s also interesting to me that people 45 and older are less unemployed than those between 25-45.
I don’t see that many young homeless people so I guess we have a lot of folks still livin wit mama. :)