Urban League: Black middle class losing ground
BOSTON (AP) — A new study by the National Urban League Policy Institute says the economic downturn has erased the gains made by the black middle class over the last 30 years.
The study released today says that the unemployment rate for blacks with a four-year college degree has tripled from 1992 and that overall black unemployment levels are nearing 1982 levels when it was close to 20 percent.
The report, released just as the National Urban League begins its annual conference in Boston, mirrors similar studies by the Economic Policy Institute and the Pew Research Center that says the economic meltdown in recent years has hit black households hard.
The National Urban League Policy Institute used U.S. Census and U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics for the study.