The African American unemployment rate historically has been about 4 to 5 percentage points above the overall unemployment rate, but that gap was cut in about half in 2019, following years of sustained expansion. After widening during the pandemic, that gap has once again narrowed, this time more quickly, and African American unemployment was at a record low of 5.0 percent in March.
Similarly, workers in the lowest-income quartile have seen the strongest wage growth relative to other quartiles over the past two years. Those workers have benefitted from the availability of jobs and, in many cases, the ability to move to better, higher-paying jobs in the current strong labor market. Nonetheless, there are some signs that this strong labor market is softening at the margin.