02/12/2026
The Cadence Institute for Policy & Society takes a deeper look at women’s unemployment by race over the past decade.
In 2025, rising unemployment among Black women received well deserved attention across media and policy circles. Rather than reacting to a single moment, Cadence Institute wanted to understand whether what we were seeing was new or part of a longer pattern. Looking at a decade of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the answer was clear. These disparities are persistent, structural, and too often hidden by headline job numbers.
This work was informed by conversations with Desiree Lovely Lee Desiree Lovely Lee, CEO of Fuel By Desi, and reflects a shared interest in how economic systems actually function for women and communities of color. The analysis also raises questions about entrepreneurship, emerging forms of work, and the largely unmeasured creator economy, where visibility does not always translate into economic security.
If we want a more honest conversation about the economy, we have to look beyond surface level indicators and grapple with who benefits, who bears risk, and why.
Read more here: https://cadenceinstitute.org/policy-blogs/f/unemployment-trends-among-women-2015-2025
In 2025, a growing number of journalists, economists, and policy advocates began calling attention to a troubling trend that headline economic indicators often fail to capture. Despite relatively low overall unemployment...
