Nearly 20% of African American youth did not have a job in July

WASHINGTON – Generation Opportunity, a national, nonpartisan youth advocacy organization, is highlighting its July 2015 Millennial Jobs Report numbers for young African Americans. The data is non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) and is specific to 18-29 year olds:

• The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds, which adjusts for labor force participation by including those who have given up looking for work, is 13.4 percent (NSA). The (U-3) unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds is 9.0 percent (NSA).

• The declining labor force participation rate has created an additional 1.779 million young adults that are not counted as “unemployed” by the U.S. Department of Labor because they are not in the labor force, meaning that those young people have given up looking for work due to the lack of jobs.

• The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year old African Americans is 18.2 percent (NSA); the (U-3) unemployment rate is 16.3 percent (NSA).

Generation Opportunity Spokeswoman Patrice Lee said, “As a young, black woman, I count myself blessed to be employed while almost a fifth of young blacks continue to struggle with unemployment.”

“Opportunities created by the sharing economy—room sharing companies like Airbnb, ride shares like Uber and Lyft, and food trucks—are key to unlocking the problem of chronic unemployment among young people of color. When states and municipalities choose to crack down on these companies, they willfully place another blockade in our path to success and heaven knows we don’t need any more of them,” Lee added.