Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Wednesday that it was “heartbreaking” to see minority workers lose their jobs in the pandemic after achieving historically low unemployment rates in recent months.
“We were hearing from low-income and minority communities that this was the best labor market they’d seen in their lifetime. All the data supported that as well. It is heartbreaking, frankly, to see that all threatened now,” he said in a livestreamed press conference.
Unemployment rates for black and Hispanic workers had drifted down to the lowest rates on record in recent months as the jobs recovery had stretched past a decade. Economists expected that prospects for those groups, which tend to be disproportionately low-income, would improve the longer that they enjoyed relatively low unemployment.
Powell said that job losses in lower-income or minority communities usually escalate faster and workers stay unemployed longer. This means that they lose valuable skills, making it harder for them to get rehired.
“Unemployment has gone up much faster for minorities and for others who tend to be at the lower end of the spectrum,” he said, adding that “it tends to go up faster and be much, much higher.”
