A new study released by the Center for Economic and Policy Research shows that recent black college graduates have twice as hard a time gaining employment than their white peers.
According to the data, in 2013, 12.4% of black
graduates between the ages of 22 and 27 were unemployed, compared to a 5.6% general population unemployment rate for college grads. Between the years of 2007 and 2013, the unemployment rate for recent black college graduates nearly tripled, and in 2013, more than half of black college graduates were considered underemployed.It’s no secret that the job market is still feeling the effects of the economic downturn, but research shows that despite equal opportunity employment laws being enforced, African Americans are still being discriminated against. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, job applicants with white names need to send 10 resumes in order to get a callback, versus applicants with African American names who need to send 15 resumes in order to get one callback.
The fact that a name alone is what’s preventing many well-qualified black applicants from landing jobs in 2014 is further proof that we’re far from achieving closure in the nation’s wealth gap.