The unemployment rate among Black women is rising. The most recent jobs report finally had pundits and policymakers on alert, but the warning signal has been flashing in vain for months: Black women’s unemployment has been steadily tracking up. Right now, their experiences are sounding an alarm that should concern us all. While headlines tout overall labor market gains, Black women facing rising unemployment reveal the cracks in our economic foundation that threaten everyone’s future. If we want a truly equitable and resilient economy, we must mitigate Black women’s labor losses through policymaking and research.
Too often overlooked, Black women’s positioning in the labor market is a critical early warning for the health and equity of our broader economy. When Black women’s economic stability falters, it signals deeper systemic cracks that threaten everyone’s prosperity.
Between February and April 2025, data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that Black women lost over 300,000 jobs even as the overall economy was growing. When the most vulnerable workers are displaced at such scale, it’s a harbinger of structural weaknesses that often ripple through labor markets and communities nationwide, slowing economic progress and deepening longstanding racial and gender inequities. The latest data are stark.
Too often overlooked, Black women’s positioning in the labor market is a critical early warning for the health and equity of our broader economy.
In April, specifically, Black women experienced the largest job loss of any demographic group, shedding 106,000 jobs even as the overall economy added more than 170,000 positions. Their unemployment rate surged from 5.4 percent in January to 6.1 percent in May—the steepest increase among all racial and gender groups this year. The unemployment rate for Black women is still on the rise, from 5.8 percent to 6.3 percent between June to July of this year. In contrast, the unemployment rate for White women held steady at 3.1 percent—less than half the current rate for Black women.
These numbers are not anomalies. They are the latest chapter in a long history of economic exclusion and precarity for Black women. According to the Highland Project’s latest poll, only 8 percent of Black women are satisfied with the direction of the country, down from 58 percent in 2021. As the report notes, “This is not just discontent—it is a declaration. Black women are sounding the alarm about today and the future.”
Research estimates that Black women lose at least $50 billion a year due to this double gap [of gender and race discrimination].
Where Does the Gap Widen?
Black women are overrepresented in low-wage, essential jobs such as childcare workers, cleaners, and health care aides; and underrepresented in higher-paying, higher-status fields, even when they have the credentials. Occupational segregation persists nationwide, confining Black women to undervalued roles and limiting their economic mobility. This is not a matter of individual effort or education; it is a systemic failure.
The wage gap only widens with age and in leadership roles, where Black women face what economist Michelle Holder calls the “double gap”: discrimination based on both race and gender. In a report with the Roosevelt Institute, Holder’s research estimates that Black women lose at least $50 billion a year due to this double gap. In leadership, nearly a quarter of women of color report experiencing racial discrimination, and more than one in five report gender discrimination.
Recent rollbacks of DEI programs have disproportionately harmed Black women, erasing critical supports these programs offer for many groups such as mentoring, higher employee retention, promoting parental leave and many more. These program eliminations are not accidental; they are a direct attack on Black women’s pathways to economic security. Government jobs, once a reliable route to decent work with benefits and pensions after the Civil Rights era, have been targeted for cuts—further threatening the economic stability of Black women. Their share of the federal workforce shrank by nearly 33 percent over the past year, a direct result of targeted policy changes.
Building Solutions
These are not failures of individual ambition. This is the result of systemic and institutional forces that continue to block Black women’s advancement. Rather than going the familiar route of ignoring and sidelining the experiences of Black women, we need to fight for their humanity and economic futures. We need to listen to what Black women are telling and showing us and build policies at the local and state levels that address their concerns. Some potential ways to offset the damage of job losses to Black women:
- Make sure state legislatures avoid the tired and ineffective strategy of tacking on more fines and fees in their state budgets to raise revenues. We know that fines and fees fall on Black women disproportionately, because of racism in policing and the outsized role Black women play as breadwinners in their families. State policymakers must ensure they are not further burdening Black families with debt from fines and fees.
- Expand and protect rental and mortgage assistance programs to provide Black women with stable, affordable housing as a critical safeguard against the compounded effects of job market discrimination and rising unemployment. Black women experience disproportionately high eviction rates and are overrepresented among housing-insecure households, making government supports like the Emergency Rental Assistance Program and Section 8 vouchers critical. Additionally, reviving programs like the pandemic-era Homeowner Assistance Fund and encouraging the growth of philanthropic efforts to provide targeted down-payment assistance will help to prevent Black women and their families from losing their homes at Great Recession rates.
- Acknowledge that data on the lived experiences of Black women are more critical than ever right now and direct funding to groups doing this work. As national databases are being dismantled and federal agencies are rolling back civil rights protections, social justice organizations must be supported to conduct research that tracks racial and gender inequity.
- Cultivate curated spaces to care for one another and dream up new frameworks and systems that meet the needs of marginalized people. The portal for change will open again, and if we are not ready with fresh ideas and concepts that go beyond our current thinking, we are failing. Philanthropy again has a role to play here in resourcing dream work.
When Black women finally thrive, so will the nation.
Safeguarding efforts that celebrate our diversity, protecting social welfare programs, and having honest conversations about the role anti-Blackness and sexism are playing in national politics are critical right now.
Black women’s labor market outcomes are a barometer for the nation’s economic and social health. Their persistent exclusion and hardship signal deeper cracks in the foundation of our economy. When Black women finally thrive, so will the nation. If we heed their warnings and center their experiences in our policies and forecasts, we will build a stronger, more equitable future for all. Black women are the soothsayers of our future. When we make steps to protect them, everyone is better off.
