WFAE 90.7

By: David Boraks

April 15, 2020

A Duke University professor warns that long-term economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak will disproportionately affect African Americans. That’s because of underlying social inequities. Economist Sandy Darity said, for example, that unemployment in the black community is consistently double the rate in the white community.

“If the overall unemployment rate is in the vicinity of 30%, then the projected unemployment rate black Americans could run as high as 50%, which is absolutely staggering, and is a number that we have never seen in this country,” Darity told reporters in a conference call Tuesday.

Darity said that would be devastating well beyond the virus crisis and be a further drag on household wealth among black residents, perpetuating inequality.

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