Layoffs in Shelby County, Tennessee, a majority-Black county where Black residents make up 51.7% of the population, surged 341% during the first half of 2026 compared with the same period last year, FOX13 Memphis reported.
The U.S. Census Bureau's QuickFacts data show that Black residents account for 51.7% of the county's population, as rising unemployment among Black Americans raises concerns about the financial stability of households nationwide.
Speaking with FOX13 Memphis, Gbenga Ajilore, chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said Black workers are experiencing disproportionate increases in unemployment.
He pointed to federal workforce reductions, rising business costs and changes in private-sector hiring as contributing factors.
Ajilore also said Black unemployment has historically increased ahead of broader economic downturns, describing the trend as a potential warning sign for the labor market.
"If you look at a national level, we always see that when there's a downturn that the Black unemployment rate is always the first to jump up," he told FOX13.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), unemployment among Black workers increased from 6% in August to 7% in September, nearly double the 3.6% rate among white workers.
The latest increase comes a year after Black unemployment reached 7.5% in September 2025, when BIN reported that economists pointed to the Trump administration's federal workforce cuts as a contributing factor.
Black workers have historically been overrepresented in federal employment, leaving them particularly vulnerable to those reductions.
The New York Times reported that the September increase marked the sharpest one-month jump in Black unemployment since the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, economists cautioned against drawing broad conclusions from a single month's data because unemployment estimates for individual demographic groups are based on relatively small survey samples.
Despite the latest increase, Ajilore told FOX13 he does not anticipate an immediate recession. However, he warned that Black households have faced disproportionately high unemployment over the past two years.
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