Not only is the official black unemployment rate 2.5 times higher than that of whites, but a significantly greater percentage of the white population is employed compared with blacks (61.6 percent compared with 54.2 percent). Evidence suggests that the real rate of unemployment and underemployment among blacks is 23.5 percent. The situation is even more severe for young blacks who face a real unemployment rate of 57.5 percent compared to a 14.8 percent real rate for young whites. Since 1950, blacks have been increasingly dependent on manufacturing jobs. The decline in manufacturing has hit hardest on blacks living in the central regions of the country, where the black unemployment rate is three times higher than that of whites. Among college-educated blacks, the unemployment rate increased 108 percent during the 1981-1982 recession, and college-educated blacks are the only group whose unemployment rate has not returned to prerecession levels. Black female-headed households that experience some unemployment are more likely than other households to have no one else employed because these families include fewer multiple earners. Even in times of high business activity, the long-term trend has been for unemployment to rise. This rise has been steeper for blacks than for whites (a 57.5 percent rise between 1973 and 1986 for blacks as opposed to a 41.9 percent rise during the same period). A wide range of policy measures is necessary to address the serious and escalating problem of black unemployment. (MN)