By Edrea Davis – When the December 2025 jobs report arrived this week, it delivered a blunt verdict on a promise most Black people already knew was false: that mass deportations would somehow create “Black jobs.” After a year of economic upheaval and aggressive immigration enforcement, Black unemployment was higher, not lower. If Black communities […]
Black Unemployment Soars Amid Administration’s War on Racial Equity
By Marc H. Morial, CEO, National Urban League – As the Trump administration continues its assault on diversity and racial equity policies, Black unemployment has spiked to its highest level in four years. “Black workers are being pushed out of the workplace and denied opportunities as a result of the administration’s hostile and discriminatory policies,” National Urban League […]
Open Letter To Tom Joyner RE: Tavis Smiley and Cornell West
By Raynard Jackson – I have known Tom Joyner (nationally syndicated radio host) for many years. We are not hanging out buddies, but we have always enjoyed talking and joking with each other. He is an “old school” soul who has done a lot of good in his life. But, in recent years, his very […]
60 Years of High Unemployment for Blacks
By Andy Kroll – How Racism, Global Economics, and the New Jim Crow Fuel Black America’s Crippling Jobs Crisis Like the country it governs, Washington is a city of extremes. In a car, you can zip in bare moments from northwest District of Columbia, its streets lined with million-dollar homes and palatial embassies, its inhabitants […]
The State of Black America: Washington Are you Listening?
By Marc H. Morial (To Be Equal #14) – “Welcome to America in the second decade of the 21st century. An army of long-term unemployed workers is spread across the land, the human fallout from the Great Recession and long years of misguided economic policies.” From Bob Herbert’s final column for the New York Times […]
Why Is Black Unemployment Rising?
By Joyce Jones (BET.com) – The news that the African-American unemployment rate rose to 15.5% from 15.3% while the overall rate dropped to its lowest level in two years is disheartening. It would be easy to blame the yawning gap between the overall jobless rate of 8.8% and the Black unemployment rate on race, but […]
The Growth of Black-Owned Businesses: Entrepreneurship by Necessity
By Marc H. Morial (To Be Equal #8) – “I had to make my own living and my own opportunity! But I made it! Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them!” Madam C.J. Walker, trailblazing African American businesswoman. There is a silver lining in the dark cloud […]