May unemployment rate holds steady but rises among Black, Hispanic women

The U.S. unemployment rate for Black and Hispanic women rose sharply last month even as overall joblessness in the country held steady.

The overall job market saw the headline unemployment rate hold at 3.6% as the economy added 390,000 jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday. That unemployment rate was in line with April’s, and the job additions surpassed a Dow Jones estimate of 328,000.

However, the unemployment rate among Black and Hispanic women over 20 years old increased sharply to 5.9% and 4.7%, respectively, up from 5% and 3.8% in April.

“These inequities absolutely existed before the pandemic,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “When we talk about returning to pre-pandemic levels, sure, we’re getting pretty close to that but that just bakes in the disparities we had in the pre-pandemic labor market and that’s just not good enough.”

The unemployment rate for white women was about half that of Black women, rising just 0.1% from the month prior. Unemployment rose for women (to 3.4%), Black Americans (6.2%) and Hispanic Americans (4.3%) overall but fell for Asian Americans (2.4%).

Even in during the Great Recession, unemployment rates for Black and Latino workers remained elevated as the overall rate dropped, said Nicole Mason, president and CEO of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

“This growth and recovery is not reaching everyone and it’s not going to reach everyone unless we improve our systems and policies to address those gaps and support these workers,” said Kathryn Zickuhr, a labor market policy analyst at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. “Really, the time to do that is now because we are in this period of recovery. When things are going is when it’s time to plan for the next period of upheaval.”

R&I~Smit