Jobs, or the lack thereof, are already a focal point of 2012 presidential campaign strategists.

But the Black community is more concerned about its Depression-era jobless rate of 16.2 percent overall and 17.5 percent for Black males, than the national rate of 9.1 percent.

In some cities, such as New York, the percentage of Blacks without jobs is stunning. In Gotham, “34 percent of New York's young black men age 19 to 24 are not working.”

Black teens have it even worse with an unemployment rate of almost 41 percent.

The declared Black unemployment rate is also lower than the actual percentage of African-Americans without jobs. The latter figure is up for speculation because people have given up looking for work in communities where employment opportunities seem nonexistent. If they don’t declare themselves unemployed, their numbers do not appear as part of the percentage.

Whether counted or uncounted, sustained high rates of unemployment are a disaster for the Black community.

(Photo: Evelyn Hockstein/MCT /Landov)