Black employment grew by 1.79% in September 2011, the strongest monthly expansion since Obama took office

While the national unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.1%, and rates for whites and Hispanics did not budge, black unemployment declined to 16.0%, from 16.7% in August 2011. Black job gains came despite sizable reductions in state and local government and manufacturing employment — sectors that employ a disproportionate number of African Americans. Compared to other groups, whites were the biggest losers. In September 2011, they gained jobs at about one-third the national rate and only 6% of the black rate. Even so, black unemployment is still twice the white rate and the gap would be still larger if the million or so blacks incarcerated in prisons and jails — 4.8% of the black male population — were counted in the labor force. From January 2009 to September 2011, both whites and blacks suffered employment declines: black employment fell by 272,000, or 1.8% and white employment fell by 2.0 million, or 1.7%. By contrast, Asian employment grew by 123,000, or 1.9%, and Hispanic employment grew by 558,000, or 2.8%, since the start of the Obama years.