Tens of thousands of once solidly middle-class African-American government workers — bus drivers in Chicago, police officers and firefighters in Cleveland, nurses and doctors in Florida — have been laid off since the recession ended in June 2009

The two and a half years since the declared end of the recession have been singularly harmful to middle-class blacks in terms of layoffs and unemployment, according to economists and recent government data. About one in five black workers have public-sector jobs, and African-American workers are one-third more likely than white ones to be employed in the public sector. Jobless rates among blacks have consistently been about double those of whites. In October 2011, the black unemployment rate was 15.1%, compared with 8% for whites. In summer 2011, the black unemployment rate hit 16.7%, its highest level since 1984. Economists say that there are probably a variety of reasons for the racial gap, including generally lower educational levels for African-Americans and the fact that many live in areas that have been slow to recover economically. Though the precise number of African-Americans who have lost public-sector jobs nationally since 2009 is unclear, observers say that the current situation in Chicago is typical. There, nearly two-thirds of 212 city employees facing layoffs are black, according to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Union. The central role played by government employment in black communities is hard to overstate. African-Americans in the public sector earn 25% more than other black workers. Blacks have relied on government jobs in large numbers since at least Reconstruction, when the United States Postal Service hired freed slaves. A study by the Brookings Institution in 2007 found that fewer than one-third of blacks born to middle-class parents went on to earn incomes greater than their parents, compared with more than two-thirds of whites from the same income bracket. The foreclosure crisis also wiped out a large part of a generation of black homeowners. The layoffs are not expected to end any time soon. The United States Postal Service, where about 25% of employees are black, is considering eliminating 220,000 positions in order to stay solvent, and areas with large black populations — from urban Detroit to rural Jefferson County, Miss. — are struggling with budget problems that could also lead to mass layoffs. Update: Walter Russell Mead says that things are probably only going to get worse for blacks.