Why is the percentage of unemployment so high for the black population in metro areas?

The relevant statistic is the "employment population ratio," a figure that measures what percentage of the total population in a certain age group has employment. When the CSC measured the employment population ratio in New York City in 2003, they found that only 51.8 percent of African American men between 16 and 65 held jobs. That means that nearly half of all African American men did not have jobs. By comparison, 75.7 percent of White men in New York held jobs that year, meaning that fewer than one in four of them did not hold jobs.