National Affairs: Neither White nor Black

The electronic innards of the Census Bureau’s Univac computer whirred last week, and out popped an anxiously awaited seven-digit number: the U.S. Government’s official mid-March unemployment total. In advance of the announcement this week, the precise figure was guarded like a missile blueprint. But word seeped out that the total showed no significant change from the mid-February level of 5,173,000. The hoped-for seasonal improvement was missing, but at least partly to blame for this disappointment was March’s wintry weather, which delayed the spring thaw in farming and construction. Pointing to the adverse weather, some Administration economists argued that the neither-white-nor-black unemployment figure really upheld the cautiously hopeful prediction broadcast by President Eisenhower last February. March, said the President, should see “the beginning of the end of the downturn.”