As of today, Black unemployment has doubled in percentages at the national level and is now 7.7% compared to white unemployment which stands at fraction margin of 3.7% , and college educated black women are being hit the hardest with loss of unemployment across the U.S. workforce spectrum.
The federal government shutdown in 2025 not only heightened the country’s weaker labor market – it caused much uncertainty both politically and economically with federal job cuts and increase tariffs at the start of President Trump’s second term. Washington D.C to date has the highest percentage of employment loss amongst black women nation wide according to EPI.
The roll back of DEI – Diversity, Equity & Inclusion programs played a key role in removing Black professionals – especially women who historically held and contributed to the resiliency, prosperity, and economic well-being of the USA. With respect to the ongoing debate and divide over whether DEI should’ve been remove indefinitely based on it’s advancement that looped in all persons of color on U.S soil – let’s examine a bit more as to why it was initially put in place.
DEI was implemented to serve for fair access, equity, and inclusion in the workplace dating back to the late 60’s and 70’s era following the Civil Rights Act of 1965. This new measure was to devoid discrimination and gender biases of both men and women serving in the public, corporate work force.
From a political standpoint this was of great concern for the Trump Administration who viewed the expansion of DEI ‘immoral and illegal’ to former Joe Biden’s Presidency that enacted into law the ‘Executive Order of 13985’ – Advancing Racial Equity & Support For Underserved Communities Through The Federal Government. So, DEI was dismantled, and major federal funding were cut which resulted in many loss of employment amongst black women who are largely represented in the public work organizational sector.
Last Year, Women Researchers for Harvard University did a study on the unique challenges and disadvantages of black women in the workplace when working alongside their white-peer counterparts. The survey included more than 9,000 women. According to Scholar Kimberle Crenshaw who wrote a pivotal article on gendered-based racism, black women are subjected to a double disadvantage especially when they work in pre-dominantly white high-wage organizational firms.
One of the key factors are low promotions and salary wages that black women receive as new work hires, and the same work evaluations that show false and low performances than their peers. This makes it harder for black women to move up in the work place; hence why many don’t consider career longevity in these similar work settings. With DEI implementation, work organizations could be challenged to provide systematic fairness and tracking data of fairly base work opportunities for their employees along with organizational practices that show which employees are assigned to low and or high priority work project that impacts labor work disparities.
More than 300,000 black women were removed from the U.S work force according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics of February 2025. The key targets were in federal jobs, the education department and the health industry nationwide. More than 16 states have has seen an increase in average of 4% of black unemployment rates.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, California is the second highest unemployment rate of white workers at 5% to date which is vastly different than any other states who had less than 5% of white employment loss.
