President Donald Trump remains a polarizing figure.
However, he did some things popular in the Black community, like prison reform and pardoning certain high-profile Black figures.
Nevertheless, the Black community has seen an increase in its unemployment rate during Trump’s second term in office, reaching its highest point since the pandemic days in 2021.
Angela Hanks, chief of policy programs at The Century Foundation, said, “Black workers are often last hired, first fired,” an axiom echoed within the Black community for decades.
She said that the “chaotic nature” of Trump’s second term is causing less stability with the economy.
Hanks added, “It’s both concerning for Black workers, but it also tends to suggest something deeper is going on in the economy.
Gerren Keith Gaynor of The Grio reported, “The latest jobs report released by the Department of Labor shows that Black unemployment spiked to 7.2% in July, marking its highest rate since the COVID-19 pandemic nearly four years ago.”
Brandon Weathersby, a spokesperson for American Bridge 21st, said, “Trump says he’s ‘done more for Black Americans than anyone.’ If pushing Black unemployment to its highest level since 2021 is his idea of progress, we’d hate to see what failure looks like to him.”
He added, “Instead of delivering on his promises to the working class, Trump is handing out tax breaks to billionaires while Black unemployment climbs, and good-paying jobs disappear. While Trump celebrates phony job numbers and lines the pockets of his ultra-rich donors, Black workers are paying the price.”
Trump infamously fired his labor statistics chief after the release of information about poor job growth in July.
In an opinion article for MSNBC, Zeeshan Aleem wrote, “Trump fired the BLS chief, Erika McEntarfer, just hours after a report showing that job growth was slowing, including downward revisions to recent months’ numbers. The president tried to frame the report as political sabotage by a Biden appointee who ‘faked the Jobs Numbers before the Election to try and boost Kamala’s chances of victory.’ He said that she would be replaced ‘with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, and they can’t be manipulated for political purposes.’”
Many of Trump’s critics believe that he will, indeed, appoint someone who will report fake jobs numbers to help Trump’s political agenda and the popularity of his Make America Great Again movement.
Businesses around the globe, and stock markets, need accurate job numbers so that they can make informed business decisions.
If false job numbers are reported and entrepreneurs and investors believe them, many companies might decide to expand when they should be downsizing or maintaining their current employment levels.
Gaynor of The Grio added, “President Donald Trump appeared incensed over Friday’s overall job numbers, which included a downward turn in the number of added jobs last month, which was only 73,000…The president, without any evidence, accused the Biden appointee of previously faking the job numbers to influence the 2024 election in favor of former Vice President Kamala Harris.”
Lawrence Summers, the Treasury Secretary under former President Bill Clinton, said, “These numbers are put together by teams of literally hundreds of people following detailed procedures that are in manuals. There’s no conceivable way the head of the BLS could have manipulated this number.”
Many Trump critics believe that his unsubstantiated claims about fake job numbers could further erode the trust that Americans have in government institutions.
Leading up to the 2020 presidential election, and after his defeat to former President Joe Biden, Trump made false claims about a rigged election.
Although he offered no proof of a rigged election in 2020, many of his followers followed his every word.
Their devotion to Trump led them to try to overthrow American democracy to steal the election from former President Biden.
Even though Trump lost dozens of cases challenging the 2020 election, many of his followers believe that Biden stole the election from Trump, while ignoring their own efforts to steal the 2020 presidential election.
Many people have cited the terminations of many government employees as a reason for the higher Black unemployment rate because many Black Americans work in government jobs.
Furthermore, many have cited the tariffs for the instability in job creation.
Hanks added, “You can see how a tariff policy that’s on again, off again creates uncertainty for businesses, slows hiring, and will inevitably have a disproportionately negative effect on Black workers.”
Despite the dismal job numbers, Black Press USA reported in June that the real unemployment numbers could be much worse.
The Ludwig Institute of Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP) estimates the true unemployment rate is actually at 25 percent.
“We are facing a job market where nearly one in four workers are functionally unemployed, and current trends show little signs of improvement. The harsh reality is that far too many Americans are struggling to make ends meet,” said LISEP Chair Gene Ludwig.
Based on LISEP’s estimates, the actual Black unemployment rate is 26.7 percent.
