The unemployment rate for Black workers fell to record lows earlier this year but it’s on the rise again, with Black workers accounting for 90 percent of the spike in U.S. joblessness since April, while white unemployment fell in June.

The unemployment rate for whites fell in June to 3.1 percent, the Labor Department reported on Friday. By comparison, Black unemployment has risen for the second month in a row from a record low of 4.7 percent in April to 6 percent in June — the highest since August and almost double that of white workers.

A widening gap between Black and white unemployment is a closely watched benchmark of inequality in the labor market, Bloomberg reported.

The number of unemployed Black Americans increased by 267,000 since April, accounting for almost 90 percent of the 300,000 increase in overall joblessness during that period.

“President Biden is trying to get credit for the economy by embracing the slogan of ‘Bidenomics‘ to describe his spending plans and the strong jobs market. But voters are skeptical,” Scott Simon and Eric McDaniel reported for NPR.

Labor data on Black U.S. workers can offer helpful clues on the strength and weakness of the economy. Black workers tend to find jobs in strong labor markets but can be the first to lose jobs when the economy weakens, CNBC reported. This is due in part to structural racism in the U.S. and the over-representation of Black workers in low-paying jobs and industries that are hit hardest in downturns, such as hospitality and construction.

The late Bill Spriggs, former chief economist at the AFL-CIO and a Howard University professor, told CNBC in February that any lag in Black workforce participation in an otherwise strong labor market signals that employers aren’t as eager to hire as they say — and that jobs listed as open may not be readily available for job seekers.

“Black workers are the canary in the coal mine,” Spriggs told CNBC. “When firms aren’t really hiring, workers that have been looking the longest give up.”

A recent Washington Post-Ipsos poll of more than 1,200 Black Americans showed that almost 50 percent of respondents don’t see a material difference in their lives in the Biden vs. Trump administration. A majority of respondents — 81 percent — said that the country’s economic system is “stacked against Black people.”

About a third of Black American respondents (34 percent) said President Joe Biden’s policies have helped Black people, while 14 percent say they have hurt, and 49 percent think they have made no difference.

Biden and his advisers have been promoting the president’s record on economics around the U.S. in the last few weeks. Their new slogan for those achievements is Bidenomics.

In Chicago on June 28, surrounded by blue signs with the word “Bidenomics,” Biden delivered what aides described as a cornerstone speech of his presidency, hailing the impact of his economic agenda as part of the 2024 campaign.

“I came into office determined to change the economic direction of this country, to move from trickle-down economics to what everyone on Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, began to call Bidenomics,” Biden said. “I didn’t come up with the name. I really didn’t. I now claim it, but they’re the ones that used it first.”