The unemployment rate for African Americans fell to the lowest level ever recorded in August, dropping from 6 percent to 5.5 percent. Not only has black unemployment reached a record low under Trump, the gap between white and black unemployment also narrowed to the smallest on record.
The unemployment ratio between blacks and whites has averaged roughly 2 to 1 or so for decades, meaning the black unemployment rate is typically twice the white unemployment rate. The ratio has remained roughly constant whether the economy is doing well or not.
As Breitbart reports:
A year ago, the black unemployment rate stood at 6.6 percent while the white unemployment rate was 3.4 percent, meaning black unemployment was 185 percent of white unemployment.The news is equally good for Hispanics. Hispanic unemployment fell to 4.2%, which matches the lowest level ever, a record set in April of this year. The unemployment rate for Hispanics first set new record lows in 2018, falling to 4.6% in June and another 0.1% to 4.5% in July.
In August, the gap narrowed so that black unemployment was under 162 percent of white unemployment. That is the smallest gap ever in records going back to January 1972.
This is particularly remarkable because it comes at a time of remarkably low unemployment. Prior to the Trump era, the last time the gap fell below 170 percent was in August of 2009, when the black unemployment rate was 14.8 percent and the white unemployment rate was 8.9 percent. Back then the gap declined because white unemployment was increasing at a faster clip than the already sky-high black unemployment.
In other words, the decline in employment inequality now is undeniably the best on record because it comes in the context of falling unemployment.
These statistics are probably very alarming to Democrats heading into 2020. Here's why:
In 2016 Donald Trump received 8% of the black vote and 29% of the Hispanic vote. If these unemployment numbers continue through the 2020 election he'll doubtless receive much higher percentages from both of these groups and that would be fatal to Democrats' hopes of unseating him fourteen months from now.
In 2016 Trump received 58% of the white votes while 37% of whites backed Clinton. Thus, a Democrat opponent has to be able to count on massive support from minority voters to win in 2020, but if minority groups are finding their economic circumstances far better under Trump than they were under Obama those massive majorities might not materialize.
Astonishingly, this prospect has led some progressives to actually hope for a recession. They're perfectly willing to see minority families, particularly children, suffer economic and social misery rather than see Trump re-elected.
One wonders how they can look at themselves in the mirror.