… is from page 93 of my late, great colleague Walter Williams’s 2011 book, Race & Economics: How much can be blamed on discrimination? (footnote deleted):
New Deal legislation was clearly devastating for the black worker. In 1930, the national total unemployment rate was 6.13 percent. However, in that year, unemployment for blacks stood at 5.17 percent, almost a full percentage point below that for whites. 1930 was to be the last year a larger percentage of whites than blacks would be unemployed.
DBx: Walter died suddenly one year ago today, soon after teaching the final session of his Fall 2020 Microeconomic Theory course for first-year GMU Econ PhD students. The pain of his passing remains sharp.