Black unemployment rate rises, yet again, in Trump’s economy

“If we had to give Donald Trump’s economy a grade, it would be an F. Fail fail fail fail fail,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson told theGrio.

The Black unemployment rate increased yet again in November, according to new data from the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics.

The economy continues to show signs of a slowdown in hiring, disproportionately impacting Black workers in the United States. According to the latest job numbers, the Black unemployment rate reached 8.3%, the highest it has been since September 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House for a second term, implementing uneven tariffs on foreign trade and driving up costs, millions more Black workers have entered the job market seeking employment. The jobless rate for Black Americans was at 6.2% when Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20. It has steadily increased since June.

The Black employment rate reached its lowest point in history at 4.8% in April 2023, under the administration of former President Joe Biden.

“The Trump Administration’s so-called ‘golden age’ is only for the billionaires he’s enriching by gutting social programs. For everyone else, it’s the complete opposite,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said of the Black jobs numbers in a statement to theGrio.

“He’s made our lives more expensive, our jobs market weaker, and our streets less safe. If we had to give Donald Trump’s economy a grade, it would be an F. Fail fail fail fail fail.”

Dr. Andre Perry, a senior fellow at Brookings and an expert in the economy’s impact on Black communities, told theGrio, “With every passing month, the burdens of the economy are being felt by proportionately more Black people. Who isn’t hired can’t easily be explained by education or willingness to work, which have become obvious racist tropes.”

Perry, the author of “Black Power Scorecard: Measuring the Racial Gap and What We Can Do to Close It,” added, “Different rates across racial lines reveal past and present structural flaws in our economy. Uneven unemployment rates are also a tell-tale sign of who is not favored in an economy.”

The Black unemployment rate can often be a “harbinger of where things are headed” in the overall economy, Jared Bernstein, Biden’s former White House chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, told MS Now on Tuesday. “That is, you know, really a tough sign for folks of color,” he said.

The national unemployment rate also spiked to 4.6%, its highest level since the onset of the pandemic.

“The unemployment rate is one of the most important indicators because that also factors in how tough it is to find a job right now. It’s taking people longer because the hiring rate has been so low,” Bernstein explained.

President Trump has long argued that his policies, including his tariffs and tough immigration enforcement, would spur investments in the U.S. market and expand job opportunities. Experts indicate that those policies are having the opposite effect on the U.S. economy and workforce.

While campaigning during the 2024 election, Trump infamously claimed that undocumented immigrants were taking “Black jobs” away from African-American workers. But according to a report by the Center for American Progress, Trump’s policies are disproportionately hurting the Black middle class.

“Despite President Trump’s past sales pitches and current claims to the contrary, his policy agenda for the Black middle class has been a bait and switch. These policies have the deliberate effect of erasing the Black middle class and making it unattainable for any future generation,” says the report authored by William Roberts and Mariam Rashid.

“The Trump administration has made deliberate policy choices that threaten Black middle-class families—perhaps that is why his support among Black Americans has collapsed so precipitously since returning to office.”