Very interesting unemployment tool: break the numbers down along demographic lines

The NY Times yesterday released a really interesting interactive tool to show how the recession has impacted employment in the US. The tool has 21 options across 4 categories (race, gender, age, and education level), resulting in 240 different unemployment curves for the past 3 years. I've screen-captured three that were of interest to me: unemployment trends for all people (all races, ages, genders, and education attainment levels), trends for white men ages 24-44 with a college degree, and black men ages 15-24 without a high school diploma. The mean 12-month unemployment for all people is 8.6%, but for people "like me" is only 3.9%. The unemployment numbers for the uneducated young black men is a whopping 48.5%, or HALF of the population! The tool shows the strong value of education, as it cuts across other demographic trends and, to me at least, is the best predictor of unemployment: in all categories of races, genders, and ages, those without high school degree had significantly higher unemployment than those with college degrees.

Here's the link, play around with it yourself; it's a really revealing look at the numbers.