What the Black Unemployment Rate Tells Us (When We Can See It)

After the longest shutdown in history, the government is finally back open. During those 43 days, workers went without pay, families went hungry, and critical public services were disrupted. Those 43 days also created a permanent blind spot in our understanding of our economy. As a result of the shutdown, some key government data were delayed, and others may never be released at all. For those of us tracking how the economy is actually experienced by Black and brown people, these gaps are not neutral. They hide who is being left behind and who bears the brunt of systemic exclusion and exploitation. For those of us tracking how the economy is actually experienced by Black and brown people, these gaps are not neutral. They hide who is being left behind and who bears the brunt of systemic exclusion and exploitation.

Every month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys thousands of workers and businesses to hear about their employment situations. They publish the results the following month, and decision-makers across the public and private sector use the information to make consequential decisions. The results of the September surveys were set to be released in early October when the government went quiet. Now, instead of publishing the September numbers in October, they will be published on Thursday, November 20.

What is less certain is what comes next. Workers were not surveyed in October, making it difficult or impossible to track—for example—the unemployment rate in October. For November, the situation is still unclear. 

As officials, analysts, and the public rush to piece together what these delayed data mean for the economy, Dēmos is looking to one specific indicator that helps to reveal what's actually going on beneath the headlines: the Black unemployment rate. The Black unemployment rate exposes the fault lines of our economy, especially because Black workers are often the first to feel the effects of a slowdown and the last to benefit from a recovery. 

Over the last three months of available data (June through August), the Black unemployment rate has crept steadily upward. The latest data from August show the Black unemployment rate at 7.5%, more than double the white unemployment rate for that same month. When Black unemployment rises, it often surfaces the deeper structural inequalities built into the labor market that leave Black workers, particularly women, at the margins.

That's why we'll be watching this number closely when the September report finally is released. It tells us more than who has a job; it shows us whom our economy is designed to serve and whom it routinely leaves behind, and it provides a crucial pulse on where the economy truly stands.

The frustrating truth now is that we're left to guess. Without reliable data, policymakers and the public are  operating without crucial information in a fragile economic moment, making it harder to craft solutions that meet the real needs of working people and families. When critical economic data goes dark, the patterns of inequity are obscured, letting exclusion persist unchecked.