It’s no secret that Black women are in an employment crisis. Since August, Black women’s unemployment rates are up from 6.3 to 6.7 percent, according to the National Partnership for Women & Families. Their unemployment rate is higher than the national average, twice as high as white women’s unemployment rate, and slightly higher than Latinas’ unemployment rate.
Economic conditions worsened for Black Americans under the government shutdown. Now that the federal government is back open, Black federal workers, which make up a fifth of the federal work force, are supposed to receive backpay for being furloughed. However, there is much work to be done to rectify the economic harms that caused by political instability in the government.
Across the racial and gender gap, Black women are the most negatively impacted by Trump’s economic policies, while white men have received greater access to leadership positions. To the Black women who remain in positions of leadership, particularly those in the Trump administration, the heightened levels of scrutiny are reflective of the current attitudes and beliefs towards Black women in the workforce.
THE PROBLEM
More than 300,000 Black women have lost their jobs in this year alone. Over half a million Black women never returned to work, since the COVID-19 pandemic, which increased their unemployment rate to 10 percent, according to gender economist Katica Roy. The elimination of several Black women from key positions in the federal work force sets a precedent for stakeholders in the public and private sectors.
The disinvestment of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives hindered Black women’s economic and professional mobility. The ever-growing unemployment numbers among Black women prompted U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) to ask Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell to investigate the crisis, in order for lawmakers to craft a solution. Since her request in September, there have been no public efforts made by Powell, despite prior pledges to “ensure maximum employment for all demographics.”
“If this continues into 2027, there’s going to be a deepening of the racial wealth gap. Students will not be able to go to school because their families may not be able to afford it,” said Karen Boykin-Towns, vice chair of the NAACP National Board of Directors. There already has been a sharp decline in Black student enrollment at public higher education institutions across the country, according to a recent study by the Southern Education Foundation.
WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE ECONOMY
Keisha Bross, the NAACP’s director of inclusive economy, told URL Media that Black women, who hold the highest degrees obtainments of HBCUs in the past five years, are unable to accumulate generational wealth, because of the lack of job opportunities. “As we think about the way not only Black women do not have jobs, but how they stimulate the economy in the long term. We have to think about what this is really going to do to the economic impact in the long term.”
When asked about possible solutions to address the economic problems that Black women and families are currently facing, Gabrielle Smith Finnie, an analyst for workforce policy at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, proposed a series of government interventions: Targeted economic support for Black communities; additional funding for central resources like food assistance, health care, and childcare; and more pathways to help Black workers reskill and upskill for emerging industries and in-demand careers.
“Centering Black workers requires increased engagement and involvement with Black communities at the helm to hear the breadth and depth of their needs, in order to create impactful policy solutions,” she said.
None of these proposed initiatives can be implemented without data from the federal government to inform economic experts and lawmakers on how to craft and develop legislation to support people during this economic crisis. And that’s a problem these days: According to the White House, it is very unlikely that The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release a monthly jobs report, which includes pivotal data about inflation and employment numbers.
On Thursday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a partial jobs report that shows a significant decline in economic growth and wellness for Black women. Although 119,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy, 91,000 Black women lost their jobs in the month of September. The job market looks grim for Black women who are experiencing the highest levels of unemployment, since the COVID-pandemic. There is a possibility that the economic picture for Black women might change, when the full jobs report is published in mid December, but the existing data speaks to the severity of this economic crisis .
HOW TO FIX IT
In the absence of up-to-date federal jobs data and laws to resolve economic decline, Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman, award-winning economist and author of “The Double Tax: How Women of Color are Overcharged and Underpaid,” believes that Black communities can look inward for financial assistance and relief. “What this looks like is us generating our economic systems of support locally, statewide, and across national networks. It looks like us leaning on one another, finding community, and using and withholding the Black dollar as we see fit. It looks like supporting Black owned businesses, pooling together funds to provide educational support, and leveraging religious and community centers as places to address needs.”
Black women have been characterized as the canary in the coal mine on economic issues in the American workforce. But Jamila K. Taylor, president and CEO of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) reminds us that good policy solutions work for everyone.
“If it works for women of color, it’s going to work for everyone,” she said. Taylor encourages decision makers to acknowledge the burden that frontline workers and service organizations, like food pantries, are doing to help those experiencing food insecurity, but knows the aid that many desperately need can only be allocated by those in office.
“We can’t afford to let political interest continue to drive these decisions. People are hurting every day that we waste,” said Taylor.
Until a long-term policy plan is set in place, non-profit organizations such as the NAACP will continue to host job fairs with employers that utilize diverse hiring practices, as an attempt to reintegrate Black women back into the workforce. The IWPR will continue to research and provide economic data to inform public and social policy on ways to champion economic equity for the most marginalized in society.
There are a series of micro interventions that have been enacted to support Black women and households who are disproportionately impacted by this economic crisis, but, it will take a series of years-long macro interventions on the federal level to restore wealth and mobility to improve economic conditions for Black women.
MORE FROM THE URL MEDIA NETWORK
- Op-ed: Investing in entrepreneurship after the government shutdown
- Black women on what the election meant and what they’re doing next
- Why Rep. Jasmine Crockett might not be the one to play with
- Could former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms crack the smoked glass ceiling?
- The past is the future: Why Black policy infrastructure is the key to lasting change
- Why Trump tariffs could mean especially rough waters for Black and Brown communities
- Trump’s war on federal workers threatens both current and future Black generations
