Economic Report of the President 1994 - The American Presidency ...

Chart 3-3 Civilian Unemployment RateUnemployment rate peaks and troughs have been higher since 1973.1948 1951 1954 1957 1960 1963 1966 1969 1972 1975 1978 1981 1984 1987 1990 1993Note: Quarterly data.Source: Department of Labor.While average unemployment rates have risen, they have risenmore for some groups than for others. The unemployment rate forwomen, which used to be consistently above the unemploymentrate for men, is somewhat lower (6.2 percent for women, 6.5 percentfor men in December 1993). In contrast, the black unemploymentrate has risen more than the white unemployment rate (1.5percentage points for whites between 1970 and 1993, and 3.5 percentagepoints for blacks and others).Employment-to-population ratios show some of the same patternsof relative distress for different groups. While black women had ahigher employment ratio than white women in the 1970s, the reverseis now true (Chart 3-6). Both black and white men have hadfalling employment-to-population ratios since the early 1970s; butthe decline for black men has been larger than for white men (10percentage points for black men from 1972 to 1993; 6 percentagepoints for white men).The unemployment rate for teenage workers (aged 16 to 19years) has always been higher than the rate for all workers, andthe current situation is no exception. While the unemployment ratefor all workers during 1993 averaged 6.8 percent, the rate for teen-105