Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) wrote to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Monday urging him to address the recent rise in unemployment among Black women under the Trump administration.

August data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showed unemployment among Black women at 2.4 percentage points higher than the national average.

“Black women unemployment has remained significantly high since March 2025. Mass federal workforce layoffs by the current Trump Administration have disproportionately impacted Black women, who comprise about 12 percent of the federal workforce compared to about 7 percent of the overall labor market,” Pressley wrote in the letter.

The national labor statistics are a broader reflection of a microcosm in the nation’s capital where the Black-white unemploy

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