As Black women face unemployment challenges, policymaker roundtable seeks solutions

In a packed room at a downtown Boston library, Rep. Ayanna Pressley asked a blunt question: Why are black women, who have one of the highest labor force participation rates in the country, now seeing their unemployment rise faster than most other groups?

Monday’s responses from policymakers, academics, business owners and community organizers outlined how the economic headwinds facing Black women could indicate a worrying shift for the economy as a whole.

The unemployment rate for black women increased from 6.7% to 7.5% between August and September of this year, the most recent month for available data due to the federal government shutdown.

This compares to an increase from 3.2% to 3.4% for white women during the same period. And it continued a year-long trend of rising unemployment rates for black women at a time of great economic uncertainty.

Many roundtable participants view these figures as both an affront and a warning about the unequal pressures placed on black women.

“Everyone misses out when we’re priced out of the workforce,” said Pressley, a progressive Democrat. “That’s something that worries me now, that you have all these women with specific expertise and specializations that we’re deprived of.”

And when black women do have jobs, they tend to be “woefully underemployed.”

Black women had the highest labor force participation rate of any female demographic in 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but their unemployment rate remains higher than other female demographic groups.

Historically, their unemployment rate tends to be slightly higher than the national average, widening during periods of slowing economic growth or recession. Black Americans are overrepresented in industries like retail, health and human services, and government administration, according to a 2024 Bureau of Labor Statistics survey.

“Black women are at the center of the Venn diagram that is our society,” said Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman, a doctoral student in public policy and economics at the Harvard Kennedy School.

She singled out April as the month when unemployment among black women began to diverge more sharply from that of other groups. A policy agenda that ignores the causes could harm the economy as a whole, she said.

Roundtable participants cited many long-standing structural inequalities, but attributed most of the latest discrepancies to recent federal actions. They blamed the Trump administration’s downsizing of the Minority Business Development Agency and the cancellation of some federal contracts with nonprofits and small businesses, saying those actions disproportionately impacted Black women. Others said tariff policies and mass layoffs at the federal level also contributed to the tension.

The administration’s opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives was repeatedly cited by participants as a cause of a more hostile environment for Black women seeking employment, clients, or government contracts.

There is no hard data on how many Black federal workers have been furloughed, furloughed or otherwise laid off as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping budget cuts to the federal government.

Participants discussed a wide range of potential solutions to Black women’s unemployment rates, including using state budgets to support Black women’s business development, expanding microloans to different communities, increasing government resources for contracting, requiring greater transparency about companies’ hiring practices, and encouraging state and federal officials to implement anti-discrimination policies.

“I feel like I’m just in church,” Boston City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune said at the end of the meeting. She encouraged attendees to continue their efforts and defended DEI policies as essential to a healthy workforce and political system. Without large-scale efforts, the Democrat said, the country’s economic and political leadership would be “abnormal” and weakened.

“Any space that doesn’t look like our country and our cities is not normal,” she said, “and not the city or country we are trying to build.”