Trump Scrooged These Americans This Christmas

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Dec 26, 1:32PM EST

Trump Scrooged These Americans This Christmas — © Pool / Getty Images News via Getty Images

Depending on the source, some 10 million to 12 million Americans will lose unemployment benefits today. While it is impossible to determine the exact makeup of this group based on age, sex, or race, the Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary for November, which showed 10.7 million Americans unemployed persons offers strong clues.

The weakness of the comparison with the BLS November data is that the 10.7 million does not match exactly with long-term unemployed statistics. These long-term unemployed have been out of work for 27 weeks or longer, representing 37% of the total, or 3.9 million persons. People who became unemployed in the last three months do not face a risk of loss of benefits until early next year, and then, only if there is no legislation extending benefits.

However, the range of the unemployed population does not change a great deal over time. Unemployment rates among Whites are well below those of people of color. But, because the total number of White Americans outnumbers any other race, the total count of white people is high. Black American unemployment rates are often nearly twice the White number. So, on a raw count basis, Black unemployment is extraordinarily high compared to the figure for Whites.

Much of the comparison between Whites and Blacks also applies to Hispanics. The November unemployment rate nationwide was 6.7%. It was 5.9% among Whites, 10.3% among Blacks, and 8.4% among Hispanics.

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On a total count basis, there were 7.359 White Americans out of work in November. The number of Black Americans out of work was 2.078 million. Among Hispanics, the count was 2.451 million. Between Blacks and Hispanics, the total number of unemployed was 4.493. That figure is 38% of the total.

As the new year starts, the long-term unemployed people in this population will lose protection from eviction, have no money for food or medical care …all in the midst of the greatest public health crisis our nation has faced. This is how Trump Scrooged Americans. Merry Christmas 2020.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.