Racial disparities in underemployment decline as education levels rise.
According to a new report from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce, the racial disparities in underemployment are stark for people with a high school education; the rate is 17.9 percent for blacks and just 9 percent for whites. But those differences shrink for people with graduate degrees, with underemployment hovering around 6 percent for blacks and Latinos, and around 4 percent for whites.
Overall, underemployment impacts a much lower percentage of college graduates than high school graduates or dropouts.
Underemployment—which encompasses part-time workers who would prefer to work full-time and people who want a job but don’t have one—for college graduates has dropped to 6.2 percent from above 10 percent five years ago when the recession recovery began. The underemployment rate is 13 percent for high school graduates and 19 percent for high school dropouts. Just 4.2 percent of people with graduate degrees are underemployed.
Despite national student debt that has ballooned beyond a trillion dollars and soaring college tuition, the report suggests that college graduates still fare markedly better than those without a degree.