Yohuru Williams, distinguished university chair and founding director of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St. Thomas, coauthored a USA Today opinion piece on why Black women are facing disproportionate job cuts. And another one for the Minnesota Star Tribune. In both, Williams highlights the long history of undervaluation that shapes the experiences of Black women in the workforce and calls on employers to take meaningful steps to support equity, retention and advancement.
From USA Today:
... As a historian and a journalist, we bring different lenses to this issue but share the same concern: that the losses Black women face in today’s workforce echo a long and painful history of undervaluation. As many Black Americans know, Black women have long been expected to work twice as hard for half the pay and are too often the first to be cut when budgets tighten.
It’s not coincidence; it’s inequity.
Recent reports show that Black women have been disproportionately affected by federal job cuts – an echo of inequities that have persisted for generations. Between February and April, Black women lost more than 300,000 jobs.
Even as the national unemployment rate has changed little, the unemployment rate among Black women has risen sharply, and their employment-to-population ratio – a more stable indicator of economic health – has fallen. ...
From the Minnesota Star Tribune:
Across the country, employment among Black women fell by more than 300,000 jobs through June this year. That was the largest decline among any demographic group, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That reality is especially visible this November as we mark National Entrepreneurship Month. As some Black women lose jobs, they move on by creating their own opportunities through entrepreneurship. This path reveals both their ingenuity and the persistent barriers they face.
While Black women are among the fastest-growing groups of entrepreneurs in the country, according to JPMorgan Chase, their businesses remain significantly undercapitalized, underfunded and often underrecognized.
