Hispanic unemployment highest in Northeast metropolitan areas
High black unemployment widespread across nation’s metropolitan areas
Economic Policy Institute
These new studies by the Economic Policy Institute found that the metropolitan areas with the highest Hispanic unemployment rates in 2010 were not in the West, where higher percentages of Hispanics reside, but in the Northeast. The two areas with the highest unemployment rates among Hispanics were Providence, R.I., and Hartford, Conn., with rates of 25.2 percent and 23.5 percent respectively. Hispanics in Providence were 2.5 times as likely to be unemployed as whites in the area, while Hispanics in Hartford were 3.4 times as likely as whites to be unemployed.
Five out of the 10 metropolitan areas with the highest rates of Hispanic unemployment were in California. Two California areas, Los Angeles and Riverside, were among the five areas with the largest Latino populations, ranking first and fifth respectively. New York, Miami and Houston were the regions with the second, third and fourth largest Latino representation.
Black unemployment rates were high in Rust Belt and Sun Belt areas in 2010, contrasting with 2007 when the employment rates in Sun Belt areas such as Las Vegas and parts of Florida were below the national rate for blacks. In 2010 the black unemployment rates in Charlotte, N.C., Miami, Tampa, Fla., and Las Vegas were among the highest rates of all areas examined.
Rust Belt areas, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Kansas City, Memphis, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and St. Louis, all had unemployment rates of at least 10 percent among blacks in 2007. By 2010 the black unemployment rates in Detroit, Milwaukee, Las Vegas and Minneapolis were all at least 20 percent. In 2010, blacks in Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Baton Rouge, La. were more than three times as likely as whites to be unemployed.
New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Washington D.C., and Philadelphia were the five states with the highest black representation in 2010. Chicago was the only one of these metropolitan areas to be among the 10 locations with the highest black employment rates; it was ranked eighth.
he studies examined Hispanic unemployment rates in 38 metropolitan areas and black unemployment rates in 31 metropolitan areas around the nation.
To read the issue briefs on the respective studies, click here for Hispanic unemployment and here for black unemployment.
