When that happens, he added, job losses across the board tend to follow. William Spriggs, an economist at Howard University, cautioned against overstating the Fed’s ability to bring inflation under control - especially when inflation is being driven in part by global forces - and underestimating the potential damage from driving interest rates much higher.īlack workers will suffer first under a Fed-induced recession, Mr. Many progressive economists have been sharply critical of that view, arguing that Black workers should not be the collateral damage in a war on inflation. “They only have to do with technical judgment.” “These arguments have nothing to do with how much you care about unemployment, or how much you care about the unemployment of disadvantaged groups,” he continued. But things haven’t been so positive for all professions, especially pharmacists. Slow Wage Growth: Pay has been rising rapidly for workers at the top and the bottom.But as the Federal Reserve tries to tame inflation, those gains could be eroded. Black Employment: Black workers saw wages and employment rates go up in the wake of the pandemic.But a year and a half into his presidency, little has been done at the federal level. Gig Workers: Labor activists hoped President Biden would tackle gig worker issues aggressively.August Jobs Report: Job growth slowed in August but stayed solid, suggesting that the labor market recovery remains resilient, even as companies pull back on hiring.The State of Jobs in the United States Economists have been surprised by recent strength in the labor market, as the Federal Reserve tries to engineer a slowdown and tame inflation. Since Black unemployment is typically about double that of white workers, that suggests that the rate for Black workers would approach or reach double digits. Summers, a former Treasury secretary and top economic adviser to Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, asserted with his co-authors that the Fed would need to allow the overall unemployment rate to rise to 5 percent or above - it is now 3.5 percent - to bring inflation under control. In a paper published last month, Lawrence H.
“Whether it’s inflation or it’s rising unemployment, there’s a disproportionate impact on Black workers.” “I don’t know that there’s any existing policy option that’s plausible that would not result in hurting some significant portion of the population,” Mr. But that also reduces demand for workers, pushing joblessness up and wages down. Higher borrowing costs make consumers less likely to spend and employers less likely to invest, reducing pressure on prices. William Darity Jr., a Duke University professor who has studied racial gaps in employment, says the problem is that the only reliable tool the Fed uses to fight inflation - increasing interest rates - works in part by causing unemployment. Decades of research has found that workers from racial and ethnic minorities - along with those with other barriers to employment, such as disabilities, criminal records or low levels of education - are among the first laid off during a downturn and the last hired during a recovery.