pull down to refresh
0 sats \ 14 replies \ @Undisciplined 17 Dec \ parent \ on: BLS Reality Check: Unemployment by Race (Seasonally Adjusted) Politics_And_Law
I was talking about the same YoY that you had been
Yes! The YoY deterioration in Black unemployment is really striking when you look at the data. November 2024 was 6.4%, November 2025 is 8.3%.
reply
It is but my point is that a lot of that increase is coming from the decrease in how many were out of the labor force, rather than from those who were employed.
This usually means people are unsuccessfully trying to find work. I don't have any idea why that shift would have happened during the past year.
reply
BLS A-2 shows Black labor force ↑ ~892k from Jul→Nov 2025, but employment also ↑ ~584k (not flat) while unemployed ↑ ~308k. So yes, more people entered the labor force, but it’s both more employed and more unemployed, not “instead of employment."
reply
That's the population growing. From Nov-Nov, the employed share is almost exactly the same: 58.5 vs 58.6.
The unemployment rate went up because less of the increased population was out of the labor force entirely.
reply
You and I already went through this debate on the Black women employment data. #1291753 We clearly interpret the labor force dynamics differently.
Your argument here (that employment-population ratio stayed flat at 58.5 vs 58.6) doesn’t address why the unemployment rate itself spiked from 6.4% to 8.3% for Black workers while White unemployment barely moved (3.8% to 3.9%).
Labor force participation explains the mechanism, but it doesn’t explain the disparity in magnitude, which is what my chart shows.
reply
It’s not really a debate. Unemployment is the combination of not being employed and being in the labor force.
The labor force is everyone who is employed or looking for work.
The share of black workers who had jobs didn’t change. So, the increase in unemployment has to come from more black people trying to find work.
I said I don’t know why that would have happened. The chart you’re referencing doesn’t explain why it happened either.
reply
We mostly agree on the math: unemployment rises when labor force growth outpaces job growth (unemployed = labor force − employed).
But BLS A-2 YoY shows this wasn’t “just population.” The Black population rose about 800k, yet the labor force rose 1.011M, meaning many more people entered the workforce or started actively looking. Employment rose +512k, so jobs were created. The issue is absorption: the remaining ~499k show up as higher unemployment, and “not in the labor force” fell ~210k, which is a real participation shift, not a mirage.
That’s why the gap matters: Black unemployment jumped 6.4%→8.3% while White barely moved 3.8%→3.9%. The next question is why absorption lagged so much more. My hypothesis is policy-driven sector exposure, especially public administration/government-adjacent work, education, healthcare, and grant/contract-funded nonprofits, where freezes or cuts hit new entrants first.
reply
meaning many more people entered the workforce or started actively looking.
That was my point. I’m not really sure what you think our disagreement is.
Your hypothesis seems reasonable to me but it doesn’t explain the decrease in people outside the labor force. The first thing I’d check there is whether it matches benefits cuts or perhaps preparing for someone in the household to be laid off.
As to why White unemployment barely moved, I pointed out that there was an increase in the outside of the labor force group. So, for some reason more of the people without jobs weren’t looking for work.