In recent years, Ms. Jones has developed a central philosophy: Because black women have historically been focused on low-paying nursing jobs, often excluded from labor laws and benefits like Social Security, they have accumulated less wealth and experience worse health outcomes. Additionally, Ms Jones argues that supporting black women — through measures like raising wages in nursing jobs and forgiving more student debt — is the best way to build an economy that works better for everyone.
Labor organization and trade union movements
In 2020, she gave her narrative a name: “Black Women Best.” She got it while working for a progressive nonprofit called Groundwork Collaborative, which ran focus groups across the country to find a narrative about how the economy should work for working people.
“They said, ‘I don’t want to be tired,'” Ms. Jones recalled of the attendees. “‘I want to buy school supplies.’ ‘I want to know that if my car breaks down, I don’t want to know that I don’t lose my apartment because I think it might happen.’” Solving these fundamental problems for people with the least resources, she thought, would transform the job market from the ground up crank high.
Her premise, articulated in a working paper for the Roosevelt Institute, a left-leaning think tank, found an enthusiastic audience under President Biden, who owed his victory in large part to black women. It was welcomed by influential figures including economists and a Federal Reserve President, and formed the basis of a 133-page report commissioned by the Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls.
It has not escaped the resistance: some scholars, including Tommy J. Curry of the University of Edinburgh, counter that black men are more disadvantaged than black women. dr Curry, a professor specializing in Africana philosophy and Black male studies at the university, said that while he understood the “political popularity” of Ms Jones’ theory, the evidence did not support it. Black women, he said, “have experienced higher levels of labor force participation, entrepreneurial endeavors supported by government grants, and higher college graduation rates since the 2000s, while black men have been shown to have higher unemployment and lower earnings per dollar — at 51 cents through some measures – and a general downward mobility.”