While the nation is reeling over double-digit jobless rates showing up for the first time in decades, Black males are looking at numbers almost twice as worse.

Almost one in five Black men 20-years-old or older are without a job, according to figures released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics earlier this month.

The seasonally-adjusted October unemployment rate for Black males is above 17 percent whereas the jobless rate for White adult males and females is under double digits at 9.5 percent and 7.4 percent, respectively. At 12.4 percent, joblessness for Black women also skews

above the national rate, which is currently at 10.2 percent, approaching the December 1982 level of 10.8 percent.

Read more from the St Louis American