>> *Though, as LBO subscribers know, if you count the incarcerated population
>> as unemployed - almost 8% of all black adult males - then the unemployment
>> rate for black men would rise from the reported 6.7% (in December) to 16.5%.
>
>I'm so embarrassed to ask this question, because I know it will have a
>simple answer and I'll look like a fool. But I can't help it, it's
>bugging me. If 6.7% of black men are unemployed, and 8% are in prison,
>then why isn't the combined rate 6.7 + 8 + 14.7%?
Because, having given up the job search as hopeless, many black men aren't in the labor force, the denominator of the unemployment formula. So, to make this adjustment, you'd have to add the incarcerated population to the labor force figure as well as the unemployed count.
There were roughly 823,000 black men in prison or jail last year, compared with 1.3 million officially unemployed. Just 72% of black men are in the labor force (i.e. working or officially unemployed), compared with 77% of white men. But the denominator of the labor force participation rate is the civilian noninstitutional population; people behind bars aren't noninstitutional. Adjusting for incarceration would lower the black male labor force participation rate from 72% to 66%; for white men, the number would go from 77% to 75%.
I should emphasize that these are estimates based on extrapolations from 1996 and 1997 figures, so they may be off by 0.5 percentage points here & there.
Doug