Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts is looking on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to deal with a troubling pattern within the job market: a pointy spike in unemployment for Black employees—notably Black girls.
Equally, August knowledge from the Bureau of Labor Statistics confirmed unemployment amongst Black girls operating 2.4 factors above the nationwide common.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell
“Black women unemployment has remained significantly high since March 2025. Mass federal workforce layoffs by the current Trump Administration have disproportionately impacted Black women, who comprise about 12% of the federal workforce compared to about 7% of the overall labor market,” Pressley wrote.
In her letter, Pressley additionally pressed Powell to satisfy the Fed’s mandate to advertise “maximum employment” for all employees, known as Black girls’s employment a “key metric of the health of the U.S. economy,” and urged the Fed to gather higher knowledge on Black girls’s job losses so policymakers can design options to cease the bleeding.
“Black women … disproportionately serve as breadwinners for our families,” she wrote. “When coupled with the fact that job openings and hires decreased overall since July 2024, you should see the current economic outlook as a glaring red flag that forbodes danger for the entire country.”
Pressley’s letter comes amid rising strain on the Fed. Final month, President Donald Trump fired Fed Governor Lisa Prepare dinner—the primary Black girl to serve on the board—setting off a combat over the central financial institution’s independence. Prepare dinner has sued over the firing.
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Trump has additionally attacked Powell for refusing to decrease rates of interest and urged him to resign, whereas quickly filling a Fed Board emptiness with Stephen Miran, chair of the White Home Council of Financial Advisers.
The financial backdrop is grim. Final week’s jobs report confirmed unemployment climbing to 4.3%, the very best it’s been exterior of the coronavirus pandemic in eight years. And a Labor Division report launched Tuesday means that the labor market could also be even weaker than initially estimated: U.S. employers created 911,000 fewer jobs by way of March 2025 than first reported—the steepest downward revision on report since 2000.
The Black unemployment price has traditionally been larger than the nationwide common, however in recent times, it’s been steadily enhancing, reaching a low of 4.8% in April 2023, in accordance with NBC.
Now, advocates say that progress is slipping away.
Former Fed Governor Lisa Prepare dinner
On that entrance, Pressley additionally blamed the gutting of range, fairness, and inclusion packages throughout private and non-private sectors. Specialists informed NBC that Black girls are particularly susceptible as a consequence of these cuts, as they’re extra more likely to maintain DEI-related jobs.
“The attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion have compounded the negative effects on Black women,” Pressley wrote, warning that limitations like hiring discrimination and wage disparities rise when employers are “prohibited from valuing” DEI.
Her letter additionally pointed to Trump’s mass federal firings, which have gutted the Black workforce in Washington, D.C., sending town’s Black unemployment price hovering to 9.9%, in comparison with simply 2.6% for white residents.
“We know that Black women are about 12% of the federal workforce, which I believe is about double their share of the workforce overall, so losses in that sector you’d expect to have a larger impact on Black women,” Valerie Rawlston Wilson, a labor economist, informed NBC.
Pressley gave Powell till Sept. 30 to answer her request.
Her letter successfully forces Powell to decide on between siding with Trump’s mass-firing agenda or stepping in to guard Black employees—a call that might outline the way forward for the Fed’s independence.
