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The current financial recession has been more damaging for African-American communities in New York at an alarming rate, confirmed a report released Monday by a city comptroller.

According to CNN, while unemployment in the city spiked to 72 percent from the first quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of 2009, it surged to more than 160 percent in the black communities specifically. The unemployment rate increased 14.7 percent, rising four times the speed than any other ethnic group.

National figures, however, did not show such a crippling difference.

Comptroller William C. Thompson said the imbalance is cause by the astronomical number of blacks in the retail and service industries, which have been seen the worst of times resulting from