Why It's Time to Shut the Alarms Over Black Women's and Free Market Employment Off
A national news headline caught my attention recently: 300,000 Black women have left the labor force in three months.
Picking up steam on social media and on programs in my local media market, I saw the statistic amplified widely.
Activists point the finger at the Trump administration, arguing that federal cuts are purposefully targeting agencies with high concentrations of women, Blacks, and racial minorities.
Furthermore, they want us to believe that rising unemployment among Black women indicates the economy is faltering.
I care about women’s employment and expanding their opportunities, and that includes Black women.
However, before we call this a "canary in the coal mine" on the economy or bash federal workforce reductions and the end of racist DEI policies, let’s clear up some things.
There is no denying an uptick in unemployment among Black women, but it is not historic.
In July, Black women experienced a 7.3% unemployment rate, above 6.3% in June and 5% in December of 2024.
While that sounds high, 7.3% is significantly below their historical average unemployment rate of 9.7% and more than half the highest rates during the pandemic (16.2% in May 2020), the Great Recession (14.8% in July 2011), and the 1980s (17.8% in March 1983).
Similarly, Black women's participation in the labor force (61.2%) hovers above the historical average (60.3%) and is within the post-COVID-19 range when many women left the workforce to care for children and family members or lost their jobs.
Black workers broadly, and Black women specifically, have consistently experienced higher unemployment rates than the national average or their counterparts.
This is not a new phenomenon.
The unemployment rate for Black men is similarly rising.
It increased from 5.4% at the end of 2020 to 7.1% last month, close to that of their female counterparts and within historical range.
When compared with other women, Black women’s unemployment outstrips Hispanic women at 4.8% and is over double white women’s 3.6% unemployment. Their participation in the labor force matches Hispanic women, but is well above white women.
I sympathize with women facing job loss.
Unemployment creates financial instability for many households, especially those headed by single parents. In the Black community, three in ten households are headed by single women, and these women are raising 44% of Black children.
However, we need more than just a few months of employment data to make sweeping conclusions about the economy.
In unpacking the sources of Black women’s unemployment, some activists point to the downsizing of the federal workforce through layoffs, buyouts, and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts to agencies.
The removal of DEI positions and programming under the second Trump Administration is also credited with having a disparate impact on Black women.
This argument might sound reasonable to regular people, but data doesn't prove it.
Black women are overrepresented in federal jobs compared to private sector employment. They comprise 6.6% of the civilian workforce but 12.1% of the federal workforce, the largest differential among racial demographics.
One biased analysis posits that agencies facing steep cuts — including Education, Health and Human Services, USAID, and Housing and Urban Development — are targeting the employment of women, Blacks, and people of color (inadvertently or willfully).
These workers were "pushed out of good jobs not due to their performance or agency needs, but due to the authoritarian agenda of a handful of billionaires," the authors of the report quipped.
This linkage is correlational, not causal.
We don’t know the demographics of workers laid off or dismissed and can only surmise this is occurring from anecdotal evidence.
Other issues could be at play in the economy. Even worse, to imply that racism and sexism are behind federal employee layoffs is just as unfounded.
Sounding alarms may prove premature.
Black women may shift to other jobs in the public sector, such as filling open state and local jobs, which have continued to grow.
They may also find work in the nonprofit sector supporting missions they believe in or in the fastest-growing industries of hospitality and healthcare, where women tend to be concentrated.
Self-employment, freelance, and gig work are also areas where women have found financial freedom.
Unfortunately, government data on these opportunities is weak and likely masks the popularity of flexible work and entrepreneurship among Black workers who leave traditional jobs.
Blacks represent 18% of freelancers in 2024 compared to 13% of the overall workforce.
These opportunities don’t carry workplace benefits like healthcare, but they can be higher paying than traditional 9-to-5 jobs, while making it possible to raise children, care for aging parents, and manage health conditions.
The U.S. economy is innovating new modes of work that many Black women thrive in.
This administration has stopped the Biden crackdown on flexible work.
A conservative-led Congress is working to protect flexible work and expand freelance and gig workers’ access to benefits without sacrificing their independent status.
Protecting worker freedom in these ways will actually help Black women, all women, and all workers who find a pink slip in their hands.
Patrice Onwuka is the director of the Center for Economic Opportunity at Independent Women and co-host of WMAL’s O’Connor & Company. Read More of Her Reports — Here.
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