{"id":5488,"date":"2026-06-28T10:38:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T10:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=5488"},"modified":"2026-06-28T10:38:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T10:38:19","slug":"four-black-women-nine-degrees-not-one-steady-paycheck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=5488","title":{"rendered":"Four Black women. Nine degrees. Not one steady paycheck."},"content":{"rendered":"

The president promised to save \u201cBlack jobs,\u201d but his policies have resulted fresh pain for the Black middle class as the employment gap widens.<\/strong><\/p>

Read more Vikings add assistant GMs Trent Kirchner from Seahawks and Andrew Healy from Browns<\/a><\/p>\n

LITTLE ROCK \u2014 Kia Mills kept her latest diploma in a bag stuffed in her closet. The expensive piece of paper had little use as she uploaded yet another r\u00e9sum\u00e9 while sitting on her gray couch on a recent gray day, a lone candle lit on her coffee table.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart-time customer service agent,\u201d the description read, $16.61 an hour.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome money is better than no money,\u201d sighed Mills, 35. She picked up her phone to text her friend, Aaliyah McShane. The job was at the airport and McShane, back when she had a steady career, loved to travel.<\/p>\n

\u201cGirl, let me get at that,\u201d McShane, 29, replied.<\/p>\n

Neither could comprehend how much desperation had replaced their ambition. McShane had two master\u2019s degrees and had worked her way up to middle-management jobs in the state and federal government over more than seven years. She had been out of work since June 2025. Mills had left her administrative job about nine months earlier, thinking a newly minted master\u2019s degree in criminal justice would make it easier to find a full-time job with a nice salary.<\/p>\n

Instead, they found themselves fitting a description afflicting more people across the United States: Black. Educated. Unemployed. Over the past year, economists and civil rights leaders have observed the unemployment rate between Black and White Americans widening at a nearly unprecedented clip. And an unexpected group is finding itself left behind.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
The Juneteenth in Da Rock Summit career and resource fair in Little Rock. Attendees can partake in entertainment, health screenings, jobs and educational opportunities. (Maxine Wallace\/The Washington Post)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cI cannot find another period outside of a significant economic downturn when the Black unemployment rate has deteriorated this much, this fast,\u201d said Marc H. Morial, president of the National Urban League. \u201cIt\u2019s affecting every region of the country, and it\u2019s taken out people who followed the script. They went to college; they climbed the corporate ladder and \u2014 voil\u00e0 \u2014 they\u2019re out of work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The economic script usually went like this: Since the 1970s, economists have noted that typically the unemployment rate for Black Americans is twice as high as it is for White Americans, a statistic that economists often cited to illustrate entrenched inequality. Morial took it as a sign of progress when the chasm began to narrow after the coronavirus pandemic. In the last month of the Biden administration, the ratio was 1.6 to 1, according to a Washington Post analysis of federal data.<\/p>\n

But within a year, the 2-to-1 gap had returned, even though the White unemployment rate remained stable. By the end of 2025, 7.2 percent of Black people were unemployed compared with 3.6 percent of White people. The disparity has barely budged since.<\/p>\n

Despite a complicated and volatile economic period with soaring gas prices and rising inflation, an unambiguous economic reality has emerged: White Americans are largely keeping their paychecks. Black Americans are losing theirs.<\/p>\n

Almost no state in the country has seen the gap widen more than McShane and Mills\u2019s home state, Arkansas, where mountainous green forests surround new high-rises in some of the country\u2019s fastest-growing metro areas.<\/p>\n

Arkansas\u2019s Black unemployment rate in 2025 exceeded the national average, while unemployment among White people was lower than the national average.<\/p>\n

Mills and McShane have found themselves cast out of such economic fortunes \u2014 not for lack of trying. They listened to podcasts giving interview tips, consulted ChatGPT on how best to tailor their r\u00e9sum\u00e9s, memorized their strengths and weaknesses.<\/p>\n

Mills calls herself analytical and detail-oriented. She prides herself on looking well put-together when she leaves the house, the foundation layered smoothly, lashes never too long or thick, eyebrows perfectly arched. McShane keeps her hair in a bun and is introverted but ambitious, a self-described \u201cquiet storm.\u201d<\/p>\n

They became friends almost two years ago, originally bonding while knocking on doors ahead of the last presidential election, encouraging their community to vote in a state where they often felt marginalized.<\/p>\n

Both had internalized the promise of America: that a good education would open opportunities and hard work would breed success. Even more so, they believed what their elders had told them about the promise of being Black in America, that triumph was still available to those who did not give up.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes, I wonder, why is this happening to me?\u201d Mills said. \u201cIf I got an interview, I hate to think that I have a terrible look that would keep me from the job. Sometimes I think I\u2019m being blackballed. I don\u2019t know. I try not to get discouraged because I believe in God, and I know He would never punish me. Sometimes, I don\u2019t understand.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGirl, we got to keep going,\u201d McShane would tell her, repeating a cycle of disappointment and support that has gone on much longer than they had ever imagined.<\/p>\n

President Trump once loved talking about the Black unemployment rate. He spoke about the issue in 27 percent of his speeches delivered in 2018 and in 18 percent of his speeches in 2019, a Washington Post analysis of remarks catalogued by Factbase showed. When the jobless numbers were low, he cited them as proof that he has done \u201cmore for the Black community than anybody since Abraham Lincoln.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the 2024 campaign, Trump argued that the next president needed to be tougher on immigration enforcement because migrants were taking \u201cBlack jobs.\u201d But in 2025, one of the biggest threats to Black jobs was the Trump administration itself.<\/p>\n

As his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) sought to reduce the federal workforce, analysts such as Valerie Wilson at the Economic Policy Institute saw a rapid rise in the unemployment rate for Black workers, an increase only the pandemic and the Great Recession could surpass.<\/p>\n

The exact number of Black employees who were among the 280,000 federal jobs lost was not immediately clear. It was hard to tell because agencies had stopped collecting employment data about race to comply with Trump\u2019s executive order banning diversity, equity and inclusion practices.<\/p>\n

But digging into the available statistics, Wilson noted that the large number of college-educated Black women losing their jobs would certainly be connected to government cuts. <\/b> Nearly one-fifth of the federal workforce was Black, despite them being 13 percent of the population. And after President Harry S. Truman integrated the federal workforce in the 1940s, government jobs became a dependable pathway to the middle class for those who were Black and ambitious.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
The Federal Building in Little Rock. The federal civil service has historically been one of largest employers of Black people. (Maxine Wallace\/The Washington Post)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Frank Scott, Little Rock\u2019s mayor, told The Post that he is proud of the strides his community has made. Its economy is the second fastest-growing in the South, with a riverfront offering free jazz music on Wednesdays and lanyard-wearing tourists riding Lime bikes downtown from the recently renovated convention center. Amid the progress, though, Scott said that the industries \u201chighly reliant upon the whims and woes of federal legislation\u201d were countering its success.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know tons of people who were middle-class individuals who had jobs at USDA for years and lost their jobs,\u201d said Scott, the city\u2019s first elected Black mayor. \u201cI know folks who were enlisted soldiers and they decided to go civilian after they did a six-year stint, and then they lost their job.\u201d<\/p>\n

An hour outside Little Rock, Vivian Brittenum felt the squeeze working at a federally funded organization designed to help jobless residents connect with businesses that need them. Since the pandemic, they had seen tire manufacturers and chicken plants and paper makers and logistics companies leave the area, taking hundreds of working-class and middle-class jobs with them each time.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
Vivian Brittenum works at a federally funded organization designed to help jobless residents connect with businesses that need them. But her organization has had to deal with cuts as well. (Brad Vest\/For The Washington Post)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

And there were fewer employees to help those who need help. Budget cuts reduced the number of workforce centers across the state from 30 to 21. After the U.S. Department of Labor sent less money to workforce programs, Brittenum\u2019s team was whittled from nine to one. \u201cWe\u2019re forging ahead as if nothing is going to happen and will keep doing the best we can, but our jobs are in limbo as well,\u201d said Brittenum, who is Black and has a master\u2019s in business administration. \u201cI\u2019m over here a nervous wreck. We might need to be looking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clark Cogbill, a spokesman for the state\u2019s department of commerce, noted that Arkansas\u2019 unemployment rate is lower than the national average. When I asked Cogbill about the disparities between White and Black employment, he said that the state was \u201cnot aware\u201d that the disparity existed.<\/p>\n

When Black Americans began losing their jobs at a faster rate over the past year, Trump had nothing to say. In 422 speeches that Trump delivered in 2025, the Post analysis found, he did not mention the Black unemployment rate in a single speech.<\/p>\n

Finally, in early June, Gerren Keith Gaynor of the Grio asked the president about the rising rate of Black unemployment.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd where your Black worker is really going to do well is when those factories open,\u201d Trump said. \u201cSo, I think they\u2019re going to be great. We\u2019ve, we\u2019ve been doing well. It\u2019s been a big focus for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The following day, Trump falsely told the crowd at a rally in rural Wisconsin that \u201cAfrican American unemployment is now doing better than it\u2019s ever done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know where the hell that stat came from,\u201d he said, \u201cbut we\u2019ll take it.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Mills walked across the stage at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock to receive her master\u2019s degree in June 2024, she dreamed of being an agent at the FBI or the DEA. Her goal was to make at least $55,000 annually, a new chapter for her family story.<\/p>\n

She was born to a mother who struggled with drug dependency. An uncle adopted her and her siblings and raised them in Memphis. She left for college, also at the University of Arkansas, and in 2017, became the first person in family to earn an undergraduate degree.<\/p>\n

Her first job out of school was an accounting clerk at the local courthouse, starting at $15 an hour, almost $2 less than the job she was now considering. She then had roles as a court clerk and, finally as a judicial assistant, making about $20 an hour.<\/p>\n

She quit after she received her master\u2019s to focus on landing a government job, figuring it would only take a few months to get one. But she did not get a single call back and, in 2025, <\/b>she started trying to return to the court system. \u201cOnce you are in the courts, you could keep moving up,\u201d she figured.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
Kia Mills poses with the necklace she designed that says \u201cMillionaire Mindset.” (Maxine Wallace\/The Washington Post)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

But Mills could not get back into the courts; nor could she get a public sector job at all. Furloughs and shutdowns made managers hesitant to hire. In Arkansas, there are 2,000 fewer government jobs \u2014 slightly less than 1 percent \u2014 than there were when she started looking into 2024, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.<\/a> Mills noticed the dwindling opportunities. \u201cI would have never resigned if I knew it would take me this long,\u201d Mills said. \u201cI have gone through the stress; it has made so unhappy.\u201d<\/p>\n

McShane tried to keep Mills positive. Back then, McShane was proud of her ability to ascend through government work. Raised in a small town on the Arkansas-Mississippi border, McShane started doing data entry at child support services in Little Rock. She rose and rose while earning her two master\u2019s degrees \u2014 one in human resource management, the other in logistics systems from Webster University. She was just starting a $70,000-a-year job assessing disability ratings at the Veterans Affairs Department in early 2025 when her office was asked to process twice as many claims as they did before.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a new administration,\u201d McShane said, \u201cand they did things differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unable to keep up with an increased workload in the new job, McShane was laid off last summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, I was relieved at first,\u201d McShane recalled. She had some savings built up, so she took a girls\u2019 trip to the Bahamas and figured the market could not be so terrible when she returned. Who could deny a woman with two master\u2019s degrees?<\/p>\n

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Aaliyah McShane adjusts her degrees. She holds two master\u2019s degrees. (Maxine Wallace\/The Washington Post)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Turned out, everyone could.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like you\u2019re not even given a chance,\u201d McShane said. \u201cYou hand in a r\u00e9sum\u00e9, and AI just rejects it immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n

More of their friends were facing similar fates, cast out because of shifting economic and cultural mores. Shakia Jackson, 45, had been the deputy director of the state\u2019s Office of Health Equity, overseeing about 10 employees who set up translation services and established a center to bring health care to Latino communities.<\/p>

Read more For U.S. soccer fans, one question matters most: Is it safe to believe?<\/a><\/p>\n

In 2023, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) sent an order instructing her office to stop using the term \u201cLatinx,\u201d and then, to remove pronouns from their email addresses. The phrase \u201cpregnant people\u201d was now offensive, and Jackson was asked to shut down a social media support group for breastfeeding Black mothers. These changes were a part of Sanders\u2019s efforts to cut DEI efforts from the government.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grieved,\u201d Jackson told her friends. \u201cBecause we got to be two times better than anybody. We got to work twice as hard, get these degrees. We got to do all the things, but they can just snap their fingers and throw you away, like it\u2019s nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Downtown Little Rock in 2025. (Bloomberg\/Bloomberg via Getty Images)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

A fourth friend, Chemeka Cooper, warned that the private sector did not seem much safer. Cooper had a master\u2019s of business administration but found herself laid off after working as a project manager at Blue Cross Blue Shield, which was trying to lower rising medical costs as the state kicked hundreds of thousands off Medicaid over the past three years<\/a>. Cooper briefly found another job at a tech company, before she was laid off there, too, in summer 2025.<\/p>\n

Since then, employers have consistently told Cooper that she was overqualified for a new job. She tried to get assistance from a career adviser, who told her she did not have any jobs that would meet her salary expectations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m applying for the job, I need the job!\u201d Cooper recalled telling her.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, employers told Mills \u2014 who has never been able to get a job using her master\u2019s degree \u2014 that she needed more experience. McShane was cycling through job listings so many times that they had started repeating themselves, even though those employers had rejected her because they said the jobs were already filled.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s happened to me, too,\u201d Mills said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you start seeing so many people in your circle, you wonder, what is it?\u201d Cooper said.<\/p>\n

Hours after McShane and Mills applied for the $16.61 job at the airport, the four women met at McShane\u2019s apartment building to provide each other as many \u201cmm-hmms\u201d and \u201cit\u2019s all rights\u201d as they needed to stay motivated.<\/p>\n

The building had large glass windows and art-deco style posters on its walls, a gym with a wall of treadmills and a large pool out back with black-and-white pool chairs. \u201cEveryone says, \u2018How can I stay in a building this nice if I\u2019m struggling?\u2019 McShane told her friends. \u201cBut if I try to move, they are going to run my credit and it\u2019s suffering right now. I\u2019d even leave Arkansas, but how can I leave? Every place is more expensive. I feel stuck.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI hear you, girl,\u201d Mills responded.<\/p>\n

Four Black women. Nine higher education degrees among them. Not one steady paycheck. All questioning everything.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
From left, Aaliyah McShane, Kia Mills, Chemeka Cooper and Shakia Jackson. (Brad Vest\/For The Washington Post)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Cooper, who worked in insurance, was changing the lessons she once gave her children about success.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, I tell them don\u2019t do things for the money,\u201d Cooper told her friends, all of whom agreed. \u201cThat\u2019s what I did. Look where I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hardest part for her had been limiting her middle child\u2019s college ambitions. An honors student, Cooper\u2019s daughter had hoped to go to a historically Black college out-of-state \u2014 a mark of academic excellence in Arkansas. No more. In-state tuition was all their one-income household could afford.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel she has to settle because I couldn\u2019t take care of it,\u201d Cooper said, fighting tears.<\/p>\n

Jackson, who once worked at the health department, held her hand, telling her it was okay to cry. She was going through it too, she said.<\/p>\n

After losing her job, she moved in with her aging parents. It helped her save money and she no longer could rely on the U.S. Agriculture Department loan she had been hoping to use to fix the water damage in her home. During the DOGE cuts, Jackson said, staff working at the local office got laid off. All aspects of her life were becoming more difficult.<\/p>\n

\u201cDepression is a stigma in our community, but I\u2019m glad I have a therapist,\u201d Jackson said. She recommended antidepressants.<\/p>\n

McShane jumped in.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mama had to help me out, that\u2019s the thing I\u2019m most embarrassed about,\u201d she said. \u201cI never had to ask for anything. My family is used to me being the one to take care of things, and to have me be that person …\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
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Little Rock is shown. Arkansas\u2019s Black unemployment rate in 2025 exceeded the national average, while unemployment among White people was lower than the national average. (Paul Harris\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

They were Black women in the South, carrying the history of being able to provide for their families, being the bedrocks of a community facing tumult. Mills grew up in Memphis, but the three other women had made their way to Little Rock from agricultural and rural small towns, where generations of Black residents dreamed of moving out of the fields and into offices like the ones they had.<\/p>\n

But now, these women found themselves cobbling together ways to make the modern math of everyday living work. They drove Ubers. Cooper and McShane made pacts with one another to substitute teach, even though the students were rowdy and the buildings were sticky and the daily pay was $118. They tried to find the balance between cunning and compromise.<\/p>\n

Cooper heard she was overqualified so often after she left her private sector jobs that she was removing lines of experience from her r\u00e9sum\u00e9. They all did. On certain applications, the women eliminated their master\u2019s degrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was a hiring manager, and all they needed was a high school diploma and I saw a master\u2019s degree, I probably wouldn\u2019t hire them,\u201d McShane admitted. \u201cI guess it depends on the individual.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think God is teaching me how to be patient,\u201d Mills said. \u201cWhat\u2019s meant for us, it won\u2019t pass us by.\u201d<\/p>\n

About a week later, Mills got a job interview.<\/p>\n

The offer came via text message from <\/b>a regional carrier for American Airlines; she\u2019d made the first cut for the part-time customer service job. There were two interview slots \u2014 one at 9 a.m., one at 11 a.m. For a moment, Mills felt like a job would not pass her by.<\/p>\n

The text message suggested she dress casually, so she put on black slacks and black flats and a white shirt. She covered the blemishes on her face with a foundation by Urban Decay. Mills had chosen the 11 a.m. interview, and when she got to the airport, she walked to a large room right before the security checkpoint. She sat at a long white table among about 20 applicants and felt thankful that she had come so far \u2014 this interview was just her fifth in two years.<\/p>\n

A representative in a blue uniform walked in and asked everyone to print their names on a blank sheet of paper. She would conduct group interviews, she said. But it would not be for the customer service position.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat position,\u201d the agent told them, \u201chas already been filled.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
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Kia Mills has been out of work since 2025. (Maxine Wallace\/The Washington Post)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Still, the agent said there was another job opportunity that she wanted to discuss, and it offered the same pay. \u201cWe need ramp agents,\u201d the agent said. They\u2019d work outside on the tarmac, rain or shine. They\u2019d clean planes. And, despite being a part-time position, they would have to come in at all hours, as needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe treat this job as if it\u2019s your primary job,\u201d Mills recalled the woman saying. \u201cIf you have another job, if you are a caregiver, if you need to walk your dog at the same time every day, this job is not the one for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mills stood up. This job was not the one for her. A job cleaning planes felt like a step too far \u2014 especially if the schedule was so unpredictable that she would not be able to devote time to finding a job that used her skill set.<\/p>\n

\u201cRespectfully, you can take my name off the list,\u201d Mills said.<\/p>\n

She walked up and took some deep breaths, trying to get over the wasted time.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
\u201cI am trying not to get into my head,\u201d Aaliyah McShane said as her job search continues. (Maxine Wallace\/The Washington Post)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Mills called McShane to tell her about what happened. McShane was also upset. She had gone to a 9 a.m. interview, where she sat in the same room with nine other applicants \u2014all of them Black women. The representative didn\u2019t ask any questions about applicable experience or a challenge they overcame or any other question they discussed on the podcasts.<\/p>\n

Instead, the representative asked one question: \u201cIf you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI told them Bali,\u201d McShane recalled, and that was it. The whole group interview took 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat were they looking for? Was it your appearance?\u201d McShane asked. \u201cBecause they never really interviewed us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d Mills tried to assure her, \u201cthey said they filled the position. Maybe you got it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Around midnight, an email dropped in McShane\u2019s mailbox.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have decided to go with another candidate,\u201d it read.<\/p>\n

The school year was ending, which meant McShane could not keep earning money as a substitute. The payments for her student loans seemed unceasing. And she did not know how much longer she could rely on her mother to help.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am trying not to get into my head,\u201d McShane said. She wondered if she should get a doctorate degree to qualify for more jobs \u2014 but she was already $70,000 in debt and could no longer hold faith that education was the answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am just not sure it was all worth it anymore,\u201d McShane reflected. \u201cI got to get a game plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackson was encouraging her friends to think more broadly about employment. After state officials dismantled her office, she swore she would never work for them again and started a consulting business. She encouraged the others to do the same. More than 70 years after the Truman administration integrated the federal workforce, the women no longer deemed government work a tool to foster racial progress. Instead, they began to follow the practices of the generations of ambitious Black people before, forced to figure things out when they were so often denied.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
Shakia Jackson. (Brad Vest\/For The Washington Post)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n
\n
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Chemeka Cooper. (Brad Vest\/For The Washington Post)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cAll of us here right now, with all our skills and all our talent, we could do so much,\u201d Jackson said to the others. She looked at Cooper, who had an MBA. \u201cWhy are you not doing project management? Why are you not consulting?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s more of a fear of not being able to do something well,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cSeveral people have asked me why I\u2019m not doing consulting, but it\u2019s more like, what would I do it in? How would I approach it? Where do I start?\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackson grabbed her hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can do it,\u201d Jackson said.<\/p>\n

Mills felt inspired and when she went home and sat on her gray couch, she thought about her skills and talents and what brought her joy. She thought how friends always complimented her on her make-up and asked for advice. \u201cMaybe I should step into entrepreneurship and become a makeup artist,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat if that\u2019s the gift God wanted me to use?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how to do it for other people, but I can learn,\u201d she said. The 1st<\/sup> was coming up and the familiar worries about paying bills began to overwhelm her. She looked at a door and saw an affirmation written in white cursive she hung. \u201cBe your own kind of beautiful,\u201d it read. She had picked up her phone and texted an aunt who owned a hair salon, thankful she knew someone who could help.<\/p>

Read more Congo, Algeria become 8th and 9th African teams to make the World Cup round of 32<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The president promised to save \u201cBlack jobs,\u201d but his policies have resulted fresh pain for the Black middle class as the employment gap widens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nFour Black women. Nine degrees. Not one steady paycheck. - Moving Insider USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=5488\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Four Black women. Nine degrees. 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