There’s no good spin on the Bureau of Labor Statistics report released Friday, which showed the U.S. economy adding just 22,000 jobs in August — the weakest increase in employment in five years. The unemployment rate climbed to 4.3 percent, the highest since 2021. (Before COVID, the last time joblessness was this elevated was back in 2017.) A quarter of those currently out of work have been searching for more than six months, the largest share of long-term unemployed in nearly a decade. For the first time since 2021, there are more people looking for work than there are available jobs.
The underlying causes have been steadily building: widespread layoffs, cautious employers, record household debt, weak consumer spending, and a surge in jobless claims. What once looked like sector-specific slowdowns has now spread across the economy. Manufacturing is struggling under the weight of Trump’s chaotic tariffs. Trade and transportation are bleeding jobs for the same reason. Even health care — one of the few strongholds of growth this year — is faltering, and conditions are expected to worsen once federal Medicaid cuts take effect, limiting services in poorer and rural communities. Other industries have barely stayed afloat, showing little real expansion.
Inside the numbers, one trend is especially troubling: the sharp increase in Black unemployment. According to BLS, joblessness among Black workers rose to 7.5 percent in August, up from 6 percent in May. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies noted this is the highest rate since late 2021, and unemployment among young Black workers skyrocketed to 16.8 percent — even as the overall youth rate dipped slightly. Gains made by Black workers in 2023 have already been erased.
“It’s very alarming,” Gabrielle Smith Finnie, senior policy analyst at the Joint Center, told Slate. “Each jobs report since the summer shows an unsteady labor market and its disproportionate impact on Black workers.” Normally, Black unemployment is around two points higher than the national average; now the gap has stretched to three. “We know there is a grave disparity, and it has been increasing.”
This setback reflects the ripple effect of mass federal layoffs earlier this year, which only now appear fully in the data after lawsuits, severance delays, and temporary rehirings muddied the picture. Black Americans hold a significant share of federal jobs, from Washington offices to postal routes nationwide. Elon Musk’s DOGE crusade — notorious for targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs while elevating inexperienced appointees with openly racist views — hit Black federal workers and contractors hardest. Ironically, as ProPublica reported, some of the very Black women removed under “anti-DEI” measures had implemented DEI initiatives during Trump’s first term.
The damage hasn’t stopped at government payrolls. DEI rollbacks have bled into the private sector, fueling backlash among young Black workers who have organized boycotts against certain companies. Trade and transportation, two of the industries BLS highlighted for steep losses, employ large numbers of Black men. These fields have been battered by Trump’s tariff policies and neglected by federal transit funding. The fallout deepens when unemployed workers cut back spending, hurting Black-owned small businesses — even those with strong customer bases. (Just last year, surveys found Black women were the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the U.S.)
Trump’s policies outside the strict economic sphere have compounded the strain. Black immigrants without legal status are deported at disproportionately high rates, while immigration raids and Trump-backed troop deployments in cities such as D.C. have stifled activity in Black-owned businesses. Tourism has also taken a hit, with Trump’s aggressive rhetoric discouraging or deterring international visitors from spending in cities like New York and New Orleans.
Economists warn this pattern has consequences beyond Black communities. In a Time op-ed, Marianne Cooper and Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman wrote: “Black women are overrepresented in precarious jobs characterized by low wages, little security, and few benefits and underrepresented in the highest paying careers.” They stressed that Black workers often serve as a “canary in the coal mine” for the broader economy. Opoku-Agyeman noted, “Before the financial crisis of 2008, Black women were already getting higher rates of subprime loans and people didn’t address it.” The late economist William Spriggs similarly observed in 2016 that if the Fed had paid closer attention to rising Latino and Black unemployment in 2007, the looming crisis might have been recognized sooner.
Now another warning light is flashing: more Black women are leaving the labor force entirely. Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley has even written to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, urging him not to overlook these signals.
During his first term, Trump frequently boasted about record-low Black unemployment as one of his proudest achievements. This time, he’ll be held accountable for the rise in joblessness across the board — and especially for the disproportionate toll on Black Americans.
