We've noted continued good news on unemployment was mostly skipped by the networks on Friday night. As usual, they didn't note the apparent irony that they consider President Trump to be "racist" (or at least issue "racist tweets"), and yet the Labor Department reported black unemployment hit 5.5 percent, well below the previous all-time low of 5.9 percent (and it was never below 7.0 percent pre-Trump). The jobless rate for black women was 4.4 prevent, and the previous low was 4.7 percent.
If Obama were still president, the major media would hone in on his good works for blacks. But the Associated Press doesn't mention either statistic in a search on "unemployment" at APNews.com. They offered "The Latest: US adds just 130K jobs, boosted by Census hiring," ; and "Modest hiring enough to fuel sluggish but durable US economy," both by Christopher Rugaber.
At the bottom of the second article, Rugaber found a different demographic with good news:
In Friday’s jobs report for August, one positive sign was an increase in the proportion of Americans age 25 through 54 with jobs. Economists typically focus on that age bracket because it filters out students and older Americans nearing retirement. Eighty percent of them now have jobs, the highest level since January 2008, just after the Great Recession began.
The New York Times never mentioned black employment gains in its report, headlined "Labor Report Shows Signs Of Economy Losing Vigor." It appeared on page B-1. Nelson D. Schwartz began: "The great American jobs machine is flagging, showing signs of its age and damage from an intensifying trade war with China and a slowing global economy."
The Washington Post buried that information in its report, headlined "In latest sign that trade war is starting to hurt, hiring cools." They also buried the story, on page A-15 in Saturday's paper.
Heather Long's story began: "Hiring cooled in August, the latest in a long line of data released this summer that indicates President Trump's trade war is starting to bite into an economy that could be on the verge of entering a rough patch."
Black unemployment bubbled up...in paragraph 23:
The U.S. economy has been growing for more than a decade, and the gains appear to be reaching more people. The African American unemployment rate fell to an all-time low of 5.5 percent in August, and the labor force participation rate edged up to 63.2 percent, one of the highest rates in recent years, as more people are finding jobs.
It could be worse: you could be CNN's Don Lemon saying the "racist president" must be disparaged regardless of black employment levels.
