Although plenty of Americans have this year returned to work or rebounded from a COVID-19 related layoff, the U.S. jobs recovery so far "has largely left behind Black Americans and workers without college degrees," The Washington Post writes.
But chief among those forgotten in the employment bounceback are Black women, whose unemployment is the "least recovered," reports the Post — still, there are "more than 550,000 fewer adult Black women working now than in February 2020," but the broad unemployment rate hides the disparaties.
Women of color frequently cited child-care struggles, health concerns, "overlooked and ignored online applications," as well as too many low-paying jobs as roadblocks in their job hunt, the Post reports.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
"I wish people understood the struggle is real," said Jasmine Yates, a Houston-based Black woman whose job search has taken months."If someone actually went on Indeed or ZipRecruiter and saw how often they get ghosted or how many hundreds of people apply for one job, they would see that the struggle is real."
A Labor Department analysis turned out similar qualms: Black men and women are about twice as likely as white Americans to say "they're unable to look for work because they can't find child care or because they have other family responsibilities," a Post analysis reveals.
Even though economists predict a "return to full employment around late 2022," the "unevenness" of the progress thus far is "a reminder that the nation has to watch carefully in the coming months to ensure certain groups aren't left behind."
"Across racial and ethnic groups, we saw a big unemployment shock in the worst possible way," said Bradley Hardy, a Georgetown University professor. But "the unevenness really did widen for Black families and Black workers, in particular."
-
Claudia Sheinbaum and Mexico’s sexual harassment problemUnder the Radar Claudia Sheinbaum vows action against sexual harassment after viral incident, but machismo and violence against women remains deeply ingrained
-
Political cartoons for November 9Cartoons Sunday’s political cartoons include a ripoff, and the land of opportunity
-
A ‘golden age’ of nuclear powerThe Explainer The government is promising to ‘fire up nuclear power’. Why, and how?
-
Covid-19 mRNA vaccines could help fight cancerUnder the radar They boost the immune system
-
FDA OKs generic abortion pill, riling the rightSpeed Read The drug in question is a generic version of mifepristone, used to carry out two-thirds of US abortions
-
The new Stratus Covid strain – and why it’s on the riseThe Explainer ‘No evidence’ new variant is more dangerous or that vaccines won’t work against it, say UK health experts
-
RFK Jr. vaccine panel advises restricting MMRV shotSpeed Read The committee voted to restrict access to a childhood vaccine against chickenpox
-
Texas declares end to measles outbreakSpeed Read The vaccine-preventable disease is still spreading in neighboring states, Mexico and Canada
-
RFK Jr. shuts down mRNA vaccine funding at agencySpeed Read The decision canceled or modified 22 projects, primarily for work on vaccines and therapeutics for respiratory viruses
-
Measles cases surge to 33-year highSpeed Read The infection was declared eliminated from the US in 2000 but has seen a resurgence amid vaccine hesitancy
-
Kennedy's vaccine panel signals skepticism, changeSpeed Read RFK Jr.'s new vaccine advisory board intends to make changes to the decades-old US immunization system
