The highest group, with household incomes of $150,000 or more, had an unemployment rate during that quarter of 3.2 percent. The next highest, with incomes of $100,000 to 149,999, had an unemployment rate of 4 percent.
Contrast those figures with the unemployment rate of the lowest group, which had annual household incomes of $12,499 or less. The unemployment rate of that group during the fourth quarter of last year was a staggering 30.8 percent. That’s more than five points higher than the overall jobless rate at the height of the Depression
Bob Herbert
This is awful news for everyone, including those not obviously affected, namely families whose household incomes are north of $100,000 per year. The lack of jobs for the nation’s poorest not only strains overextended social programs. It also exacerbates the conditions which produce and sustain poverty. Low service, low education, low outlook.
How can this be made right? This is one of the defining questions of the second decade of the 21st century.