With the unemployment rate at a twenty-eight-year low of 4.5 percent, and discussion of discrimination unpopula in this post-affirmative action era, scant attention has been focused on the unemployment rate gap and the differential status of African American workers. But yes, there is still an unemployment rate gap, and it widened -- not narrowed -- in the face of economic prosperity.

Instead of the traditional 2:1 relationship between Black and White unemployment rates, in August the Black unemployment rate was 9 percent, 2.25 times the White rate of 4 percent.

Wage gaps remain as well. The Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute issued an early copy of its State of Working America this past Labor Day. According to EPI, the 1997 hourly wage for White women was $10.02, compared to $8.49 for African American women. The wage gap has worsened over time: in 1989 the White female wage was $9.84, while the Black wage was $8.76. Regardless of educational level, White wages grew from 1989 to 1997, while wages for African Americans fell.

College-educated African American women saw their wages drop 3.2 percent in the last five years, while White women who were college graduates saw their wages grow by 4.4 percent.

Among men, the situation was somewhat different, although gaps remain. White men earned $18.20 an hour, compared to the $12.92 that African American men earned. Overall, men saw their wage levels drop in the 1989-97 period, but African American men saw their wages drop more precipitously. However, among college-educated men, there was slight wage growth -- with Black men's wages growing twice as rapidly as White men's from 1989 to 1997. Nevertheless, White men earn $21.45 to the $16.53 that Black men earn. Further, wage growth among White men was far more pronounced than that of Black men in the past five years -- when White men's wages grew by 2.5 percent, and Black men's by just 0.1 percent.

While the data clearly indicate that college-educated African Americans do better in the labor market than their noncollege-educated counterparts, there is far more demand for workers in low-paying industries than for workers in higher paying jobs that require a college education.