July 7, 2025
An expert said Black women often serve as an early warning sign for the wider workforce.
The general unemployment rate has been steady during the past year for every group of workers, every group of workers that is, except for Black women, which some economic experts warn is a sign of bad things for the overall economy after the latest jobs report was released on July 3.
According to The 19th News, over the last three months, the unemployment rate for Black women has been somewhere around six percent—that figure is twice the unemployment rate of white workers–and this points to potential problems for the overall economic outlook.
Jessica Fulton, a senior fellow at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank focused on Black Americans, indicated to the outlet that due to the presence of systemic racism and inequity in the labor market, Black workers are always the first ones affected by any underlying issues with the labor market.
“Black workers, and particularly Black women, show up as a canary in the coal mine, giving a picture of what may happen to everyone else later,” Fulton said.
To her point, the overall Black unemployment rate rose to 6.8% in June, after posting a 6% rate in May, a sharp increase that was driven by the increase in Black women’s unemployment, as the unemployment rate of Black men has been consistently above 6% since February, but the overall rate of Black unemployment was somewhat tempered by Black women’s lower unemployment rate.
Black women, in general, are the group of women who participate the most in the labor market, and are often employed in sectors like healthcare, education, and the federal government, which has been hit hard by the job cuts instituted by the federal government’s budget cuts.
Jasmine Tucker, the vice president for research at the National Women’s Law Center, indicated to the outlet that the rising rate of unemployment for Black women is also concerning because compared to other workers, Black women tend to stay unemployed longer.
Additionally, although Black women are overrepresented within the federal government, in particular within the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development, the loss of federal jobs doesn’t completely explain the rise in unemployment for Black women, and there are larger structural issues at play as Kate Bahn, chief economist and senior vice president of research at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, told the outlet.
“Black women are overrepresented among those jobs,” Bahn said. “But somehow, that’s still not enough to overcome the bigger structural barriers.”
Tucker added that the state of Black women’s unemployment numbers indicates that there is a serious cause for concern, “Are we heading into a recession? Is some action the current administration is going to take going to keep moving us in that direction? Prices remain high, people can’t afford child care — there are a whole host of things people are really nervous about. For me, Black women’s unemployment going up — this is the backbone of our economy, of our labor force. We have cause to be concerned.”
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