September 7, 2025
Economists warn that rising Black unemployment numbers are a dark omen.
One month after Donald Trump took the extraordinary step of firing Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the first jobs report delivered under its acting commissioner, longtime BLS figure William Wiatrowski, carries a message of impending doom for the American economy.
According to Yahoo Finance, the reason for the doom and gloom over the economy is that the prospects of Black workers, both male and female workers, are at their most dismal since the pandemic, a situation that portends disaster for the economy writ large. The unemployment rate for Black men is 7.1% and the unemployment rate for Black women is just a tick lower, coming in at 6.7%.
As Gary Hoover, an economist at Tulane University, told the outlet, “What we find typically is that the unemployment rates that you see for the young, for Blacks — and particularly Black males — are a telltale sign of the direction of the economy and what we can expect to see hit overall in a few months.”
Indeed, as Hoover alluded to, the unemployment rate for Black teenagers, like it is for adult Black American workers, is also of concern. Black teenage unemployment, that is, the employment rate for individuals between the ages of 16 and 19, sits at 24.8% which far outstrips the overall Black employment rate of 7.5% recorded in August.
According to Gbenga Ajilore, chief economist at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Black unemployment rate is a “canary in the coal mine.”
He also added that “If it’s steadily starting to go up, that portends that the economy might be heading toward a downturn.”
Ajilore also noted that Black unemployment numbers often signal an impending economic crash due to the fact that within the American job market, Black workers are often the first fired but the last hired.
In addition, Black workers are also overrepresented in the federal government, which has seen significant overturn since Trump’s inauguration in January.
Dean also added that in general, “Across the board, you’re seeing industries that employ large amounts of Black people either stagnant or in decline.”
As it relates to Black women, however, there is a bit of a discrepancy in the numbers, as Axios reports that in August, the unemployment rate for that group jumped up to 7.5%, a figure that sharply outpaces that group’s 5.4% unemployment rate in January and the 6.7% figure reported by Yahoo Finance.
As Andre Perry, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told Bloomberg in June, these numbers are the direct result of several factors converging at once on the prospects of Black women in the job market.
“The layoffs at the federal level, where Black people are more represented, the impacts of the tariffs, particularly on small businesses that hire Black women, and the overall use of DEI as a slur, which may be contributing to a lack of hiring of Black women, all of these factors are probably at play,” Perry noted.
Taking things a bit further, Jessica Fulton, senior fellow at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, indicated in her comments to Axios that although the federal layoffs comprise a significant number of Black women whose job numbers are adversely affected, it is not the only factor at play.
“It’s a really large drop and it can’t just be the federal layoffs. Black unemployment rates rise more sharply and sometimes more quickly than for other workers,” whenever the economy starts to head into a downturn for both the American workforce and the American economy in general.
As Daniella Zessoules noted in her analysis for Dēmos, “Black women’s work is concentrated in sectors that are the backbone of our economy, so when they see gains like higher wages, stronger protections, and better working conditions, those benefits ripple outward. Conversely, when Black women are being pushed out or shut out, it’s not a side issue; it’s a warning sign that our economic system is failing.”
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