Black unemployment drop
Religion & Liberty Online

Black unemployment drop

Jerry Bowyer at NRO highlights a remarkable statistic with this “BuzzChart”: The unemployment rate among black Americans has fallen 2.7 percentage points since April 2003 (the data come from the National Urban League’s annual “State of Black America” report).

Bowyer chalks it up to Bush’s tax cuts. I’ve no doubt the tax cuts have had a positive impact on the national economy, but I’m not sure that the drop can be simply tied to that cause. Overall unemployment, for example, has declined less steeply, and wouldn’t the effects of the tax cut be more or less uniform across race? I wonder whether anyone has analyzed this phenomenon more closely. In any case, it’s a development to applaud.

Kevin Schmiesing

Kevin Schmiesing, Ph.D., is a research fellow for the research department at the Acton Institute. He is a frequent writer on Catholic social thought and economics, is the author of American Catholic Intellectuals, 1895-1955 (Edwin Mellen Press, 2002) and is most recently the author of Within the Market Strife: American Catholic Economic Thought from Rerum Novarum to Vatican II (Lexington Books, 2004). Dr. Schmiesing holds a Ph.D. in American history from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A. in history from Franciscan University ofSteubenville. Author of Within the Market Strife and American Catholic Intellectuals, 1895—1955 (2002), he serves as Book Review Editor for the Journal of Markets & Morality. He is also executive director of CatholicHistory.net.