Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., is calling for Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to address a new jobs report that shows a disproportionate jump in the unemployment rate for Black workers, with a focus on Black women.
In July, 319,000 fewer Black women were employed than in February, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, leading to a 1.3% increase in the unemployment rate for Black women. The rate increased by 1.5% for Black men over the same period.
Pressley sent a letter to Powell on Tuesday morning, obtained exclusively by NBC News, urging the Fed to uphold its mandate to promote the highest level of employment for all workers and stressing that Black women’s employment is a “key metric of the health of the U.S. economy.” She also called for the Federal Reserve to collect data on changes in Black women’s employment for the government to create public policy to prevent or stall more losses.
In addition to having a rising rate of college enrollment, Black women are the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs “and disproportionately serve as breadwinners for our families,” Pressley wrote. “When coupled with the fact that job openings and hires decreased overall since July 2024, you should see the current economic outlook as a glaring red flag that forbodes danger for the entire country.”
Pressley reiterated Monday that the unemployment rate for Black women is “a glaring red flag” for the overall health of American jobs. “When the rest of the country gets a cold, Black folks get pneumonia,” Pressley told NBC News.
Pressley also asked Powell to ensure the Fed’s autonomy after President Donald Trump fired Fed governor Lisa Cook last month, creating a test of the central bank’s independence. Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the board, said she was not terminated for cause, and she has sued Trump over the firing. Pressley told NBC News that Cook’s firing and the rollback of Black leaders within the federal government, such as Carla Hayden, the librarian of Congress; Gen. CQ Brown, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and others, were part of a broader “moment of antiblackness on steroids.”
“None of this is by accident,” she said Monday. “This is discriminate harm. It is precise and it is targeted. And eventually this harm will come for everyone. But the patterns of it, the precision of it, it’s a predictable playbook. It is not happenstance.”
Employers across the country added just 22,000 jobs in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which was fewer than the 75,000 jobs expected to be added last month. The overall unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3%, which, aside from at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, was the highest it has been in eight years. Still, the unemployment rate for all workers is relatively stagnant compared with the beginning of the year, which was 4.1%. But for Black workers, the unemployment rate hit 7.5% in August, a notable increase from 6% in February.
The Black unemployment rate has long been higher than the rate for the general working population. But “since February 2022, the Black unemployment rate has been steady at 6% and even hit a low of 4.8% in April 2023,” said Gabrielle Smith Finnie, a senior policy analyst for the Joint Center for Political and Economic studies, a think tank that focuses on public policy to help communities of color.
In addition to more systemic barriers around racial discrimination and hiring, Pressley pointed to the rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion programs in public and private sectors and cuts in the federal government’s workforce as factors disproportionately affecting Black unemployment.
“It’s a loss of the wealth of knowledge, of innovation, of skills that Black women contribute everyday,” she said to NBC News.
Smith Finnie said fewer entry-level jobs are also contributing to the job market.
“The widespread adoption of AI also makes it harder for Black workers to enter and re-enter the workforce,” she said.
Cuts to diversity, equity and inclusiveness programs have also affected the number of Black women in the broader workforce, said Valerie Rawlston Wilson, a labor economist and director of the Economic Policy Institute on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy, noting that they are likelier to work in the DEI space within and outside the federal workforce.
Following the Trump administration’s announcement this year that it would overhaul the federal workforce, about 70,000 workers have left or have been separated from federal jobs.
“We know that Black women are about 12% of the federal workforce, which I believe is about double their share of the workforce overall, so losses in that sector you’d expect to have a larger impact on Black women,” Wilson said.
Pressley said on Monday that she has spoken with women who worked at those agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development, he Consumer Protection Financial Bureau and the departments of Education and Health and Human Services.
“Their first concern was not ‘what is my family going to do?’” Pressley said. “Their first concern was of the unfinished work: What about the grants not administered for affordable housing? What of the research that will not happen to save a life? What of the elders who are victims of a predatory product, who is not going to get justice?”
SOURCE: nbcnews.com