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0 sats \ 5 replies \ @jamalderrick OP 17 Dec \ parent \ on: BLS Reality Check: Unemployment by Race (Seasonally Adjusted) Politics_And_Law
It bothers me when we act like this is a mystery. Since January 2025, the administration has implemented policies that squeeze government-adjacent job pipelines:
• EO 14151 ordered agencies to terminate DEI/“equity action” offices and end “equity-related” grants/contracts and related requirements for contractors/grantees. 
• EO 14173 revoked EO 11246, and DOL/OFCCP was directed to stop holding federal contractors to affirmative-action obligations. 
• Schedule F was reinstated (as “Policy/Career”), easing reclassification/removal of policy-influencing roles. 
That hits education/health/social services/contractors, where Black workers can be disproportionately displaced, and the resulting openings can be filled by other groups (including White workers).
The purpose of careful empirical research is to subject our assumptions to scrutiny.
These data show that the most active margin is between unemployment and non-participation. It does not appear that many jobs have been lost by either group over the past year.
Whites do not appear to be taking black jobs. Rather, unemployed whites appear to be dropping out of the workforce while blacks are increasingly trying to join it.
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You’re focusing on “jobs lost,” but the data show “jobs not created fast enough for entrants.” That’s why Black unemployment jumps while White barely moves. Net job loss is the wrong yardstick; the issue is the absorption gap.
And I’m not saying “White people took Black jobs.” Jobs don’t have skin color. I’m saying the pipelines that kept access fair, especially in public-sector and federally funded hiring/contracting, have been weakened, raising barriers that hit Black workers harder.
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You said that black workers are displaced from jobs resulting in openings being filled by white workers, amongst others.
That’s not what is shown here. Job growth kept sufficient pace for employment rates to hold steady. What changed significantly is the share of people without jobs who are seeking them.
That’s an interesting story that may well be related to the factors you’re raising but you seem fixated on a different narrative.
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I’m not on a different “narrative". I’m working from a different set of facts. You’re describing the identity; I’m pointing to the mechanism that likely changed: sector pipelines and policy. If we want to test it, the next step is to look at sector-by-sector hiring and grant/contract flows. Otherwise we’ll keep circling around the same definitions.
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This isn’t a “narrative,” it’s a hypothesis about incentives. The EEOC chair is literally telling white men to file “DEI-related discrimination” complaints. That message alone can alter compliance behavior and slow the pipelines that were absorbing entrants. If I’m wrong, sector-by-sector numbers will show it.
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