City Comptroller Bill Thompson is releasing some economic data and it's grim. Here are some stats from his press release: "New York City unemployment rate is likely to reach 9.5% by early 2010," "More than one in seven New Yorkers were unemployed or underemployed in the first quarter of 2009," and "Overall unemployment rose by 72% between the first quarters of 2008 and 2009, but unemployment in the African-American community swelled by 167%. The unemployment rate among African-Americans during the first quarter of this year rose to 14.7% - four times faster than with other ethnic groups." The NY Times dives into African-American unemployment figures; one man who lost his customer service job said, "My department was mostly black and Hispanic. Management was mostly white and they didn’t get let go. You would think they would trim the fat from the top, not the bottom, because it’s the lower-wage workers that do the bulk of the work." Photo: NY Times