Black Women’s Wave of Unemployment Poised to Soak U.S. Economy

The Economic Indicator You Best Not Ignore 

First fired... Even a tenured Black professional with "in-demand" skills will still find it harder to land a new job after a lay off compared to her white competitor. image credit: Shutterstock

The U.S. is only nine months into the second term of President Donald Trump, and economic observers say Black women are already suffering. 

“Black women make up a larger percentage of public sector jobs and some of the executive orders from the Trump administration, and changes at state agencies to comply with these orders, has one of the biggest influences on that decrease in numbers,” says Chase Gen Strategy Consultants LLC founder and information analyst Kyra Roby. 

Trump’s chaotic tariff regime is devastating the U.S. manufacturing sector, while the so-called Department of Government Efficiency blows up government employment. Both sectors employ Black people at a higher volume than other industries, reports MSNBC. According to an analysis by the New York Times, African American women have been the hardest hit since Trump’s return to public office. An estimated 319,000 have left or have been pushed out of both private and public sector jobs. Last month, Black unemployment hit its highest level since the COVID pandemic, CNN reported, while following Atlanta resident Donald Hudson around a job fair earlier this month. 

“Focusing on the quality of jobs that Black women get really translates back into the local economy ... And when you have large percentages of Black women who are out of the workforce, there is a ripple effect in the local economy where that money is not circulating back in industries like childcare or elder care, because Black women are often either taking care of children or elderly family members, or both.” 

Administrative assistants, customer service and low- and mid-level management positions are not the only slots evaporating and taking Black employment with it. Hundreds of highly skilled veterans are struggling to land a new gig in this current economy, said CNN. This included Hudson, who was hoping to reclaim a job in tech or engineering, which is what he was doing when he worked for Boeing and the engineering wing for NASA. 

The latest employment snapshot from the Bureau of Labor Statistics paints a bleak picture. Only 22,000 jobs were added in August, and Black unemployment reached 7.5%, its highest level since October of 2021. This compares to an unemployment rate of only 3.7% for white people. 

As of August 2025 Black unemployment reached 7.5%, up from 6.1% in August of 2024. image credit: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Any drop in African Americans in the workforce can have a devastating effect on the U.S. economy. This is primarily because Black Americans are expected to have buying power of $2.1 trillion by 2026, according to a 2024 Nielsen report.  

The U.S. Black population is comparatively young, compared to the white population,” reports eMarketer. It’s also culturally influential, and economically powerful with Black consumers pressing a big footprint into the digital landscape through high engagement with streaming, social media and online shopping. Black Americans also show strong loyalty to brands that reflect their identity.  

Forbes noted in 2024, Black Americans consumed an average of 84 hours per week of digital, television and radio, up from an average of 81 hours in 2023. That’s compared to the overall U.S. population, which consumed an average of 72 hours and 39 minutes of media in 2024 and approximately 69 hours the year prior. Streaming comprises the largest share of Black adults’ total TV time. And don’t think for a second CBS, ABC and others don’t realize the power of all those eyeballs watching their show clips on their phones and seeing all those ads.  

Fox News pundit Greg Gutfeld often claims he has higher viewership than liberal comedian Stephen Colbert and other late-night shows like Jimmy Kimmel, which the president is presently trying to cancel. And while Gutfeld corners the market with old white people who still watch the fading phenomenon of live television, Colbert and Kimmel drown Gutfeld’s right-wing staleness when it comes to streaming views. 

On YouTube, “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” has 10.1 million subscribers, and clips from “Gutfeld!” tend to average only 500,000 views — on a good day. That’s still many, many times less than viewers watching Colbert’s monologues. “Black consumers are plugged in and making it clear how they expect brands and retailers to respond to their economic and cultural influence,” eMarketer reports. 

Black women, in particular, spend more of their money than most, says Roby. 

“Focusing on the quality of jobs that Black women get really translates back into the local economy,” Roby says. “And when you have large percentages of Black women who are out of the workforce, there is a ripple effect in the local economy where that money is not circulating back in industries like childcare or elder care, because Black women are often either taking care of children or elderly family members, or both.” 

But the powerful economic generator that is Black women’s spending takes longer to ramp up after a shutdown. Black Americans are slower to recover from job losses, which means a longer road to recovery. CNN reports, even if you’re a tenured Black professional with engineering or analytical skills, it’s still comparatively hard for you to land a job compared to your white competition.  

Black workers are a Geiger Counter for the larger economy, being both the first fired when the economy falters and the last hired when the economy recovers. To ignore the ticking indicator of what’s happening with Black jobs is often the mistake a presidential administration makes before it topples and takes its Congressional majority with it in the mid-terms.