Saturday, August 16, 2025

Trump's DC takeover

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This is America

Stories of justice and action across America

Sat Aug 16 2025

There's an old saying in the Black community: last hired, first fired.

And the way the U.S. labor market is looking there might be reason to believe that is happening.

Greetings, This Is America readers, Phillip M. Bailey here.

There are plenty of reasons the job market is being called resilient, but a noticeable crack has emerged among Black Americans, who have reached their highest level of unemployment since the COVID-19 pandemic days.

The jobless rate for hit 7.2% in July among Black workers, up from 6.3% a year ago and 6.8% the month before, according to the most recent jobs report . It's a troubling sign mainly because historically speaking Black people are often hit first economic downturns.

"The Black unemployment rate is always the first to go up. That's always the canary in the coal mine," Gbenga Ajilore , chief economist at the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told USA TODAY.

Labor activists and unions gather at a rally at Military Park in Newark, N.J., on May 1, 2024, calling for the expansion of unemployment benefits.

Tariq Zehawi/NorthJersey.com, Tariq Zehawi/NorthJersey.com / USA TODAY NETWORK

For more on what's happening in the U.S. economy, check out the USA TODAY Network's coverage:

•	Gen Z's financial wake up call: Younger Americans are learning about budgeting, saving, and struggling
•	What's keeping Americans up at night: Duh! Bills, debt and inflation − we spend 4 hours a day worrying
•	The heir's property: Speaking of Black America, here's one man's fight to reclaim family land in the South

Trump's political war in Texas is escalating

Don't take your eyes off Texas and the attempts to redraw congressional maps.

This is a fight that could determine the future of Donald Trump's presidency, but also one that might open up a larger conflict among Democratic and Republican-controlled states.

Prompted by the prospect of losing control of Congress, the president wants a rare mid-decade redistricting in Texas, where Republicans have come up with boundaries for U.S. House districts that could give the GOP five more seats.

Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows gavels in on Thursday, the fourth day legislators lacked a quorum because Democratic lawmakers left the state, denying Republicans the opportunity to redraw the state's congressional districts.

Nuri Vallbona, REUTERS

Now more than 50 Texas Democratic legislators have skipped town to break quorum, and Trump's allies want to send the FBI after them in order to bring them back to Austin, the Lone Star state's capital.

Both parties are portraying this as a battle for the future of the country that could expand to other states, as Trump administration officials − namely Vice President JD Vance − visited Indiana to urge Republicans there to do the same thing as Texas.

Asked if any agreement had been reached on making new maps for the Hoosier State, Gov. Mike Braun said, "we listened."

Don't forget blue state governors in California, Illinois and New York are thinking about adopting this same strategy, which ultimately will make Congress even more divided.

Thanks for reading! See you back next week with more stories of justice from across the country. You can find me on social @ phillipmbailey.