August 4, 2025
It comes as little surprise that Brandon Weathersby, a spokesperson for American Bridge 21st Century, wants to hold Trump accountable for his claims about helping Black Americans
As the White House defended Donald Trump’s firing of Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer over concerns that he could not trust her data, the numbers that Trump was implicitly denying are clear: Black unemployment is at its highest rate since the pandemic.
Although Black unemployment numbers are generally higher than the numbers for whites, the 7.2% unemployment rate is the highest since December 2021, a development that some economists have tied to his chaotic handling of tariff policies.
As Angela Hanks, the chief of policy programs at The Century Foundation as well as a former Department of Labor official during the Biden administration, told The Grio, the “chaotic nature” of Trump’s policies has had the effect of making “the economy less stable.”
She continued, “You can see how a tariff policy that’s on again, off again creates uncertainty for businesses, slows hiring, and will inevitably have a disproportionately negative effect on Black workers. Black workers are often last hired, first fired, and so when you see Black unemployment rising, it’s both concerning for Black workers, but it also tends to suggest something deeper is going on in the economy.”
As BLACK ENTERPRISE previously reported, Hanks’ comments echo previous commentary regarding Black women in the workforce.
Jessica Fulton, a senior fellow at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, noted last month that Black women often serve as early indicators of shifts in the broader economy.
Hanks, too, based on her comments, sees the problems facing Black workers as indicative of more troubling economic news to come.
Regarding Trump’s conspiracy theorist claim that the jobs numbers in the most recent jobs report were somehow manipulated, former Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton, Lawrence Summers, said that his allegations made no logical sense.
“These numbers are put together by teams of literally hundreds of people following detailed procedures that are in manuals. There’s no conceivable way that the head of the BLS could have manipulated this number,” Summers said in an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.”
As bad as the latest jobs report looks, unfortunately, as Black Press USA reported in June, the true unemployment numbers are even more sobering.
According to the chair of the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP), the true unemployment rate is actually closer to 25%.
“We are facing a job market where nearly one in four workers are functionally unemployed, and current trends show little sign of improvement,” said LISEP Chair Gene Ludwig. “The harsh reality is that far too many Americans are still struggling to make ends meet.”
Per their advanced calculations, which take more into account than the BLS statistics, the true unemployment rate of Black workers is 26.7%
With this context, it comes as little surprise that Brandon Weathersby, a spokesperson for American Bridge 21st Century, wants to hold Trump accountable for his claims about helping Black Americans.
“Trump says he’s ‘done more for Black Americans than anyone.’ If pushing Black unemployment to its highest level since 2021 is his idea of progress, we’d hate to see what failure looks like to him,” Weathersby told The Grio.
He continued, “Instead of delivering on his promises to the working class, Trump is handing out tax breaks to billionaires while Black unemployment climbs and good-paying jobs disappear. While Trump celebrates phony job numbers and lines the pockets of his ultra-rich donors, Black workers are paying the price.”
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