Not everyone is celebrating, however: Jobless rates for Black women and Latino men still haven’t recovered fully from the pandemic. The unemployment rate for Black women aged 20 years and older rose to 5.5% in December, from 5.2% in November, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For Latino men, unemployment rose 0.4 percentage points to 4% last month, higher than the 3.1% unemployment rate in February 2020. The Fed effectThe government’s current response to inflation may also be playing a role in rising unemployment for Latino men and Black women, Bahn said. In April 2020, the Hispanic unemployment rate shot up to 18.1% after hovering at around 4% pre-pandemic, BLS data shows.

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