The New York Times has just posted an fabulous infographic, showing what the unemployment rates look like for various demographics--ranging from race to age to education levels. And when you start playing with it, some very troubling messages start popping up.

The specter of race is unavoidable. In almost every demographic, the unemployment rate for blacks is double that of whites: For example, among the college educated, aged 25-44, whites have a jobless rate of 3.7%. Blacks are at 7.4%, while Hispanics and Asians are somewhere in between, at 4.8% and 4.9%.

Another fact: The recession has been particularly hard among the less educated. The highest unemployment rates of all are among blacks, aged 15-24, without a high-school diploma--there, the rates lie at a whopping 42.7%. Granted, these started at alarmingly high levels of just below 35% when the recession began--but if you play with the graph, what leaps out at you is that black jobless is accelerating far faster than other groups.

But one of the most surprising trends of all is unemployment among recent college graduates.

Whites are seeing steady increases in joblessness--no surprise yet...

... but the unemployment rates are spiking among minorities who are recently graduated. Hispanics and Asians--the demographics where recent immigrants are concentrated--have seen jobless rates skyrocket:

Which leaves you with the ugly possibility that when recession hits, the first casualty is the American dream.

[Via Infosthetics]