The Jobs Boom Is Going to Women — But Black Women Were Left Out

Roughly 90% of the new jobs created since President Trump's second term began have gone to women, according to a New York Post report citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data (New York Post, 2026a). NPR reported in April 2026 that 348,000 of 369,000 net new jobs (94%) went to women, largely driven by growth in health care, where women hold nearly 80% of jobs (Hsu, 2026).

That's the headline, and on its face it looks like unambiguous progress for women. But break the number apart by race, and the story changes: Black women were not part of this jobs boom.

While women overall were gaining, Black women's employment fell — one of the sharpest one-year declines for this group in 25 years. They've lost ground while the rest of the labor market's "women's gains" story was being written, and the reasons why matter far beyond their own paychecks.

Every Other Group of Women Got Ahead. Black Women Didn't.

The Economic Policy Institute found that Black women's employment rate fell by 1.4 percentage points in 2025, to 55.7% — one of the sharpest one-year declines for this group in the past 25 years (Wilson, 2026). Set against every other group tracked in the same report, Black women stand alone:

• Black women: –1.4 points

  
  

• Black men: –0.5 points

  
  

• White women: –0.5 points

• Hispanic women: +0.6 points

• Asian American/Pacific Islander women: +0.4 points

(Wilson, 2026)

While the overall labor market delivered a historic run of job growth for women, and while Hispanic and AAPI women saw modest gains even within that run, Black women moved in the opposite direction.

That distinction matters: this is not a "women of color" story or a "Black and brown women" story in the aggregate.

Hispanic and Asian American/Pacific Islander women's employment rose over the same period Black women's employment fell.

The data points to a disparity specific to Black women, not a broader pattern shared across all women of color.

The remaining data below shows how deep and how concentrated that decline was.

• Hit hardest among college graduates and federal workers. The largest losses were among Black women who were college graduates and public-sector workers. The employment-to-population ratio for Black women with bachelor's degrees fell 3.5 percentage points a steeper drop than any other education category (Wilson, 2026).

  
  

• Reporting citing EPI data found Black women lost 95,371 federal government jobs in 2025, about a third of the total federal workforce contraction (American Prospect, 2026).

  
  

• Net job losses. The Institute for Women's Policy Research reported that Black women lost a net 113,000 jobs in 2025 (Institute for Women's Policy Research, 2026).

  
  

• Disproportionate share of losses. At the height of summer volatility, Black women accounted for 54.7% of all female job losses, despite making up only 14.1% of the female workforce (Institute for Women's Policy Research, 2026).

  
  

• A narrower slice of the workforce, a far bigger hit. Only 5.1% of Black women work in federal roles yet they saw federal employment fall by more than 30%, compared to an 11.6% drop for all women and 8.1% for men (Institute for Women's Policy Research, 2026).

  
  

• Current unemployment gap. As of June 2026, the unemployment rate for Black workers stood at 6.6%, nearly double the white unemployment rate of 3.6% (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2026b).

  
  

• Earlier in the year, the Black unemployment rate ran even higher — 7.3% in January 2026 (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 2026) — while the White rate held near 3.6–3.7% throughout.

  
  

Why the Federal Workforce Matters Here

A significant piece of this story runs through the federal government. Black women have historically been overrepresented in federal employment, which has long offered more pay transparency, more stable benefits, and clearer promotion paths than much of the private sector.

A National Women's Law Center analysis found that Black workers made up 36% of the workforce in the Departments of Education and Housing and Urban Development —double their 18% share of the overall federal workforce — even as those agencies were targeted for some of the largest layoffs (Public Sector HR Association, 2025).

Separately, the New York Post reported that federal headcount fell by more than 50,000 employees in 2025, cutting nearly $2 billion in salaries (New York Post, 2026b).

That combination — overrepresentation in the agencies hit hardest, layered on top of a broader hiring environment favoring women overall — helps explain why Black women's job losses look so different from other women's job gains.

Why This Gap Carries Extra Weight

The racial gap in this jobs data isn't just a statistical outlier, it lands on a group with an unusually load-bearing position in family economics, which is part of why the disparity matters beyond the numbers themselves. A Center for American Progress analysis found that 69% of Black mothers are breadwinners, meaning they provide at least half of their household's income — well above the 45% rate for mothers overall (Andara et al., 2025).

That breadwinning role is also long-standing and structural, not new: for more than two decades, there have been roughly one million more employed Black women than employed Black men in the U.S. economy (Center for Economic and Policy Research, 2025).

That context is what separates this from an ordinary employment statistic. A comparable percentage-point decline among white or Hispanic women — groups that, per the data above, didn't experience one — would still be a loss.

But layered onto a group that disproportionately anchors household income, the same decline translates into a disproportionately larger hit to family stability, with effects that extend to children, housing, and spending well beyond the person who lost the job.

The Bottom Line

The 2026 jobs data makes a genuinely good story about women's labor-market gains — 90% of new jobs, historic growth, real progress. But that story only holds up if "women" is treated as one group.

Break it apart by race, and Black women are the exception:

while White, Hispanic, and Asian American/Pacific Islander women saw their employment either hold steady or improve, Black women's employment fell more sharply than it has in a generation, concentrated in exactly the sectors — federal government, professional roles requiring a college degree — where they had made the most progress.

This is not a "women of color" issue broadly; it is specifically a Black women's issue, since Hispanic and AAPI women's employment moved in the opposite direction over the same period. That's the story worth telling alongside the headline.

References

Andara, K., Estep, S., & Salas-Betsch, I. (2025, May 9). Breadwinning women are a lifeline for their families and the economy. Center for American Progress. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/breadwinning-women-are-a-lifeline-for-their-families-and-the-economy/

American Prospect. (2026, April 24). Federal job cuts hit Black women hard — a year later, unemployment is up. https://prospect.org/2026/04/24/federal-job-cuts-hit-black-women-hard-unemployment-is-up/

Center for Economic and Policy Research. (2025, January 16). Black women's views on Black men's high rate of joblessness. https://cepr.net/publications/black-womens-views-on-black-mens-high-rate-of-joblessness/

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. (2026). Unemployment rate: Black or African American [LNS14000006]. FRED. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS14000006

Hsu, A. (2026, April 10). Women are getting most of the new jobs. What's going on with men? NPR. https://www.npr.org/2026/04/10/nx-s1-5773327/women-men-jobs-health-care-manufacturing

Institute for Women's Policy Research. (2026, February 10). IWPR new report: Black women disproportionately sidelined in year one of Trump's second term [Press release]. https://iwpr.org/press/iwpr-new-report-black-women-disproportionately-sidelined-in-year-one-of-trumps-second-term/

New York Post. (2026a, August 6). Almost 90% of jobs created since Trump's reelection have gone to women. https://nypost.com/2026/08/06/us-news/almost-90-of-jobs-created-since-trumps-reelection-have-gone-to-women/

New York Post. (2026b, July 31). More than 50,000 federal employees, $2B in salaries eliminated under Trump in 2025. https://nypost.com/2026/07/31/us-news/more-than-50000-federal-employees-2b-in-salaries-eliminated-under-trump-in-2025/

Public Sector HR Association. (2025, May 19). Report: Federal job cuts having disproportionate effect on women and minorities. https://pshra.org/report-federal-job-cuts-having-disproportionate-effect-on-women-and-minorities/

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2026a). E-11. Employment status of the civilian noninstitutional population by sex, age, and race. https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpsee_e11.htm

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2026b, July 2). The employment situation — June 2026. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

Wilson, V. (2026, February 10). Black women suffered large employment losses in 2025 — particularly among college graduates and public-sector workers. Working Economics Blog, Economic Policy Institute. https://www.epi.org/blog/black-women-suffered-large-employment-losses-in-2025-particularly-among-college-graduates-and-public-sector-workers/