President Donald Trump falsely claimed that Black unemployment in the United States is at its lowest level ever, despite federal data showing the rate remains higher than it was when he returned to office in 2025.
Unemployment numbers of Black Americans
Speaking at an event in Wisconsin, Trump praised what he described as significant economic gains for Black Americans while also expressing uncertainty about the statistic he cited.
“We’ve also had huge drops in — and I’ll tell you, this is something that’s amazing: African American unemployment is now doing better than it’s ever done. And I don’t know where that stat came from, but I’ll take it,” Trump bragged, seemingly making up a big win for his administration.
“I don’t know where the h*** that stat come — but we’ll take it,” he echoed.
Federal labor statistics show the unemployment rate for Black Americans stood at 6.6 percent in May — down from 7.3 percent in April and below the 8.2 percent level recorded in November 2025 during Trump’s second term. However, the figure remains above the 6.2 percent rate recorded in January 2025, when Trump returned to office. It’s also higher than the 6.1 percent rate recorded in December 2024 — President Joe Biden’s final full month in office.
The current rate is also higher than the unemployment rate recorded during each of the final 34 full months of the Biden administration, from March 2022 through December 2024.
The actual statistics
The record-low Black unemployment rate since the federal government began tracking the data in the early 1970s was 4.8 percent in April 2023 during Biden’s presidency. Before that, the previous low was 5.3 percent, recorded during Trump’s first term in August and September 2019.
While Trump referenced “huge drops” in unemployment, the 0.7 percentage-point decline between April and May was not historically significant. By comparison, the rate fell 0.9 percentage points between March and April 2024 under Biden, dropping from 6.5 percent to 5.6 percent.
Warning from economists
Economists generally caution against focusing too heavily on single-month changes because unemployment figures can fluctuate significantly from month to month.
It remains unclear whether Trump improvised the claim or was referencing prepared remarks.
The national unemployment rate across all demographic groups was 4.3 percent in May.
