The following basic facts and figures are from reports recently released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and the US Bureau of Justice Statistics. Please check out the original reports (here and here) as well - they’re a treasure trove of interesting info, plus easy to read with lots of charts for the visually-inclined.
1. Over a quarter of the Black population has a bachelor’s degree or higher
In 2019, about 27 percent of the Black population age 25 and older had attained a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared with 36 percent of the overall population. Although educational attainment among Blacks has increased over time, 44 percent of the Black population age 25 and older had a high school diploma or less in 2019, compared with 38 percent of the overall population.
2. Labor force participation rate of Black men is 4.4 % lower than the rate for all men
Historically, the labor force participation rate (the proportion of people working or looking for work as a percentage of the civilian noninstitutional population) for Black men has been lower than the rate for all men. In 2019, the rate for Black men was 64.8 percent, which was 4.4 percentage points lower than the rate of 69.2 percent for men overall.
3. Labor force participation increases with educational attainment, from 37.3% of Blacks with less than a high school diploma to 77.9% with an advanced degree.
In 2019, 77.9 percent of Blacks with an advanced degree (master’s, professional, or doctoral degree) and 77.4 percent of Blacks with a bachelor's degree participated in the labor force, compared with 58.9 percent of Blacks with a high school diploma and 37.3 percent of Blacks with less than a high school diploma.
4. Black men and women with less than a high school diploma have held fewer jobs on average
Among people ages 18 through 30 with less than a high school diploma, Blacks held fewer jobs than workers overall (per 2015-16 data). Black men in this educational category held an average of 6 jobs, while Black women had an average of 5, compared to the overall averages for men (8 jobs) and women (6 jobs) with less than a high school diploma. Blacks with some college or an associates degree held around the same number of jobs as the overall average for workers at this education level.
5. Earnings increase with educational attainment, with median weekly earnings of $1284 for Blacks with advanced degrees to around $540 a week for Blacks with less than a high school diploma.
Among full- time wage and salary workers, median weekly earnings of Blacks with an advanced degree ($1,284) were more than twice the earnings of Black high school graduates with no college education ($635) in 2019. Median earnings for Black workers were lower than the median earnings of workers overall at all levels of educational attainment. For example, according to the following chart, Blacks with a bachelor’s degree earned around $1000 a week compared to an overall average of $1250 for that education level.
6. More than a quarter of employed Blacks work in education and health services
In 2019, 28 percent of employed Blacks worked in the education and health services industry, higher than the national average for that industry (23 percent). Another one-fifth of employed Blacks worked in retail trade (10 percent) and in leisure and hospitality (10 percent). Employed Blacks were less likely to work in professional and business services, manufacturing, and construction than were employed people overall.
7. Black workers were 3% less likely to have paid leave, according to the latest data available (2017-18)
In 2011, 61 percent of Black wage and salary workers and 60 percent of all wage and salary workers had access to paid leave. In 2017–18, 63 percent of Black workers had access to paid leave, compared with 66 percent of all wage and salary workers.
8. Black unemployment rate is 2.4% higher than the national average
In 2019, the unemployment rate for Blacks was considerably higher than the overall rate of 3.7 percent. The unemployment rate for Blacks was 6.1 percent in 2019, the lowest annual average in the history of the series (which begins in 1972). Though higher, the unemployment rate for Blacks has generally followed the same pattern as the overall unemployment rate.
9. Black rates of labor underutilization are higher compared to the overall population.
The concept of labor underutilization provides insight into a broad range of problems encountered by workers in today’s labor market. The most comprehensive measure of labor underutilization is defined as the sum of the unemployed, people who are marginally attached to the labor force, and those who are working part time for economic reasons, as a percentage of the labor force plus the marginally attached. According to this measure, Blacks had a labor underutilization rate of 11 percent, compared with 7.2 percent for the overall population.
10. Non-Hispanic Black men are more likely to be arrested or incarcerated
About two-thirds of men born in the years 1980–84 had never been arrested or incarcerated as of 2015-16. This figure was lower for non-Hispanic Black men—55 percent. In contrast, non-Hispanic Black men were more than twice as likely as men overall to have been incarcerated more than 6 months (14 percent, compared with 6 percent). Non-Hispanic Black men were also slightly more likely to have been arrested, but not incarcerated, than were men overall (25 percent and 22 percent, respectively).
11. The imprisonment rate for Blacks fell 28% from 2008 to 2018 and is now at its lowest rate since 1989.
Across the decade of 2008-2018, the US imprisonment rate—the proportion of residents who are in prison—fell 15%, from 506 sentenced prisoners in 2008 to 431 in 2018 per 100,000 US. residents During that time, the imprisonment rate dropped 28% among black residents, 21% among Hispanic residents, and 13% among white residents. Among sentenced state prisoners at year-end 2017, an estimated 61% of Blacks and Hispanics and nearly half of whites (48%) were serving time for a violent offense (just 4% for drug possession).
Take away: progress is being made but there’s still a lot of room for improvement.
References:
“Labor Market Activity of Blacks in the United States” Vernon Brundage Jr. / U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, February 2020.
“Prisoners in 2018” by E. Ann Carson, Ph.D., BJS Statistician. Report NCJ 253516. Released April 30, 2020 https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p18.pdf