The Geography of Memphis' Unemployment

Last week the NY Times did an article on Memphis. It got widely forwarded and just about everyone who reads blogs like this saw it. Not too many bloggers posted about it though. FearlessVK did. There isn't too much to add explaining the correlation of race and unemployment. So I thought my contribution would be to show it.

The first map is 2009 percent of population that is black.



This second map is the 2009 unemployment rate.



Just a refresher on these statistics.
The median income of black homeowners in Memphis has declined below its 1990 level.
Black unemployment in Memphis stands at 16.9 percent, up from 9 percent just two years ago. For whites, it is a mere 5.3 percent.
Nationwide (and consider the consequences for a predominantly black city), as of December 2009, median white wealth dropped 34% to $94,600, while median black wealth dropped 77% to $2,100.