Perhaps no other group in the United States has suffered more from the Great Recession than Native Americans. Over a three-year period, the American Indian unemployment rate nearly doubled, from 7.7% to 15.2%. In the same period, the unemployment rate for whites more than doubled, but went from only 4.1% to only 9.1%.

 

The jobless rate for Native Americans was at its highest in Alaska, where the native population endured a rate of 21.3% by the first half of 2010. In the Midwest, Indians experienced the greatest jump in unemployment—10.3%—which raised the rate to 19.3% for the region.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Different Race, Different Recession: American Indian Unemployment in 2010 (Economic Policy Institute) (pdf)