Courtesy of The Root
The economy added 114,000 jobs last month, on top of an upward revision of 86,000 jobs to July and August. The private sector has added jobs for 31 consecutive months, and after coming into office in the depths of the Great Recession, President Barack Obama has created more than a million jobs over his first term. For the first time since he took office, the unemployment rate is below 8 percent, hitting 7.8 percent in September.
Meanwhile, the share of African Americans with a job edged up from 52.7 percent to 53.0 percent and the unemployment rate fell to 13.4 percent, after hovering just above 14 percent for the past three months. Among adults ages 20 and over, all of the gains for African Americans were among women. Although the share of black adult women overall employed rose from 55.1 percent to 55.3 percent, the share of black adult men employed fell from 57.7 percent to 57.5 percent. Both adult men and women, however, have seen their employment rate rise over the past year 0.5 percentage points.
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