Benchmark
Black American Workers Are Quickly Coming Back From the Sidelines
The participation rate for black Americans has reached the highest in seven years
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Black Americans are jumping back into the job market faster than any other race or ethnicity in this economic recovery.
The share of black workers at work or seeking employment touched 62.5 percent in April, the highest level since 2010, a recovery from a more than the three-decade low of 60.3 percent at the end of 2013. Even with that rebound, black labor force participation remains below the overall rate of 62.9 percent.
"This is evidence of the last hired, first fired phenomenon," said Valerie Wilson, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, DC. "As the recovery continues on you start to see the biggest improvements for the groups that were hit the hardest."