This Labor Day, Black Women Deserve More Than Our Thanks

Every Labor Day, we pause to honor the workers who keep this country moving.

This year, I am thinking especially about Black women.

I am thinking about the Black women who get up every morning to care for our children, teach in our schools, serve our communities, run businesses, staff hospitals, lead organizations and keep households afloat.

And I am thinking about the Black women who want to work — but no longer have a job to go to.

Over the past year, Black women have experienced some of the most troubling employment losses in the country. Research from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research found that approximately 251,000 fewer Black women were employed in August 2025 than at the start of that year. Even after some recovery, 113,000 fewer Black women were employed in December than in January.

Those aren’t just numbers on a government spreadsheet.

Those are women. Those are families. Those are households.

Here in Mississippi, we understand exactly what is at stake when a Black woman loses her job.

Black women have long been workers, caregivers, providers, community leaders and economic anchors for our families. When a Black woman loses her paycheck, the consequences rarely stop with her. A lost job can mean a family struggling to pay rent or a mortgage. It can mean choosing between groceries and a utility bill. It can mean delaying medical care, pulling from savings, if there are any savings to pull from, or wondering how to afford childcare while searching for the next opportunity.

And too often, Black women are expected to somehow make it work.

That is why this Labor Day cannot simply be about thanking Black women for our labor. It must also ask whether the economy is working for us.

The employment losses among Black women should concern all of us. They have included women with college degrees and women who built careers in public service — women who did what we are so often told will lead to economic security: get educated, work hard, build experience and contribute to your community.

Yet hard work alone cannot protect families from an economy in which opportunity and security remain unevenly distributed.

At the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, we have spent years listening to Black women across our state. We know that economic security is connected to nearly every other issue affecting our lives — affordable childcare, access to health care, equal pay, livable wages, transportation, housing, education, and the ability to build wealth that can be passed to the next generation.

When Black women are economically secure, families are stronger. Communities are stronger. Mississippi is stronger.

So this Labor Day, we should do more than celebrate work.

We should recommit ourselves to building an economy in which Black women have access to good jobs with fair wages and benefits. We should invest in affordable childcare and workforce development. We should protect pathways to stable employment and advancement. We should support Black women entrepreneurs who are creating jobs and opportunities in communities across our state. And we should listen to Black women when they tell us what their families need to thrive.

Most importantly, we should reject the idea that the economic hardship Black women face is somehow theirs alone to solve.

Black women have always worked.

We have worked inside our homes and outside of them. We have cared for other people’s families while caring for our own. We have built businesses, classrooms, churches, movements and communities. We have contributed immeasurably to the economic and civic life of this country — often without receiving equal opportunity, equal pay or equal recognition in return.

Our work has always mattered to America.

Our economic security should matter just as much.

This Labor Day, let’s honor Black women not only by recognizing what we contribute, but by building an economy where our work is valued, our families are secure, and every Black woman who is able and ready to work has a fair opportunity to prosper.

Cassandra Welchlin is Executive Director of the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable, an organization working to increase civic engagement and economic security for Black women and girls throughout Mississippi.

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