An extraordinary 95% of black voters cast their ballots for Barack Obama, but blacks have suffered more than any other group during his presidency

While black unemployment has for decades exceeded that of other groups, the gap widened noticeably during the Obama years in spite of the fact that the Federal Government, and especially the Obama Administration, has de facto discrimination in favor of black employment. At the start of Obama administration (January 2009), the unemployment rate for African Americans was 12.7%. In August 2011, black unemployment was 15.9% — the highest monthly jobless rate for any race or ethnic group during the Great Recession. From January 2009 to August 2011 both whites and blacks suffered employment declines: black employment fell by 540,000, or 3.5% and white employment fell by 2.5 million, or 1.8%. Since Obama took office the number of blacks 16 to 19 years old holding jobs has declined by 162,000 – a 32.6% reduction. Over the same period teenage employment declined by 17% for whites and 15% for Hispanics. More than one quarter (27.4%) of blacks had income below the poverty line in 2010. That’s nearly twice the national poverty rate (15.1%) and about three-times the rate for non-Hispanic whites (9.9%). The black poverty rate grew by 1.6 points in 2010; the national rate rose by 0.8 percentage points.