Unemployment rates over the past year have remained largely steady for every group of workers but one: Black women, whose unemployment rates have been rising.
For the past three months that increase has been even more pronounced, with Black women’s unemployment rate hovering at 6 percent — twice the rate of White workers — according to new data released Thursday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It’s a trend that has been troubling economists, and a potential sign of strain in the economy.
Because of systematic racism and inequities in the labor market, any cracks in the strength of the overall economy always show up for Black workers first, said Jessica Fulton, a senior fellow at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank focused on Black Americans.
“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. MORE