The Black unemployment rate, typically a canary in the coal mine, is nearly twice as high as the white unemployment rate (7.1 percent versus 3.6 percent), and has persistently remained at some of the worst levels we’ve seen for Black workers since the post-pandemic reopening. As long as BLS staffers aren’t leaking concerns to the financial press, and as long as the bureau is still led by an acting commissioner who’s willing to push back against the president in public, you can trust these public servants are doing the best they can with what they have, and that they’ll keep updating the data as they need to. As for the geopolitical picture: The Strait of Hormuz, which transmits everything from oil to industrial metals to fertilizer, looks like it will be closed for a while, and the supply shock from that chokepoint, already hitting the Eastern Hemisphere hardest, is going to wreak havoc on future trade in food, energy, electronic and auto parts.
Author: Nitish Pahwa
Published at: 2026-04-03 21:32:11
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