Earlier this summer, economist Katica Roy reported that over 300,000 Black women had left the labor force at the start of the year. And according to author and Harvard Kennedy School PhD student Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman, that number might be considered an economic canary in the coal mines.

“We know this is the case because it's happened back in 2008 post-recovery, but we also know that it happened right around the very beginning of COVID-19 where I think Black women's unemployment shot up to 17% or around that, according to the Economic Policy Institute,” said Opoku-Agyeman. “So we really need to be paying attention to Black women in particular.”

In her upcoming book, “The Double Tax: How Women of Color Are Overcharged and Underpaid,” Opoku-Agyeman looks at the ways that race and gender can cost Black women in the economy, and how policy can help address those setbacks. She spoke with “Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal about the book. The following is a transcript of their conversation.

Kai Ryssdal: I want to talk about, first of all, I want to talk about the whole book, but I want to talk about the title of it so that people understand what we're talking about: "The Double Tax." What does that mean?

Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman: So the double tax is essentially the compounded costs of racism and sexism. And I think the way that I like to frame it to people, it's really a focus on thinking about how the individual costs that women, especially women of color, face, become societal costs for everyone else. It's kind of like you see your neighbor's house on fire down the street, and you have a choice, right? You can either go down and help your neighbor put out that fire, or you can kind of ignore it and say, well, that fire is not in my house or my neighborhood. But the idea about fire is it spreads. So if you don't address the fire at some point, it will probably spread to your doorstep. And so the idea here is, if we address the double tax, it doesn't have the chance to spread back into society.

Ryssdal: All right, so we're going to get to the spread in a minute. I want to use you though, specifically your story, and granted the sample size is one here, but there you are back in college. You're studying econ, and you go to your advisor and say, listen, I want to get a PhD in economics. What does your advisor say to you?

Opoku-Agyeman: Yes, it's a great, great question that you're asking me, Kai. A little messy.

Ryssdal: We got time, you know.

Opoku-Agyeman: I would say that, you know, the advisor basically kind of looked me up and down. And this is someone who, by the way, it was my first time meeting him, and he kind of was like, I don't think a PhD is the right path for you. Specifically, he said it would be too hard for me and that I should settle for a master's. And I just remember leaving that conversation being like, what was he basing that on? And it wasn't until much later that he caught a glimpse of some of the classes that I was taking. And he was like, that's your course load? And I was like, yes, remember, I told you I was trying to do this PhD. Like, why are you acting confused? This is something I was trying to explain to you, but you immediately shut me down.

Ryssdal: I feel the need to be explicit here. He looked at you and saw you're a Black woman.

Opoku-Agyeman: Honestly, I want to say sure. Sure. And I can't say for sure that that was exactly what he was thinking, but from my experience in economics thus far, it's not too far from the truth, I feel. And I imagine that me showing up and saying, I want to pursue this high-powered profession as a career path came against his priors, essentially, right? What he's used to seeing is people who look like him. He's a white guy, right? People who come from backgrounds like his. And I think that me, even daring to pursue this type of path, really came against anything that he previously believed about potential from folks who look like me.

Ryssdal: And we should say here, just on that note of your experience so far, you're a Harvard economics PhD student, for crying out loud.

Opoku-Agyeman: Yes, public policy. With a concentration in economics.

Ryssdal: Public policy, all right. Well, so there you go. So let's get to the way this spreads. And I want to bring up a piece I saw, I guess, on NBC a couple of months ago. But, you know, the data was everywhere. Something like 300,000 black women this summer were leaving the workforce. And this is kind of the spread of what happens, because if you take that population out of the workforce, well, a lot of things happen, but it's just a bad sign. Full stop.

Opoku-Agyeman: That's right. One way that I've been trying to get people to think about this is think about it as sort of 300,000 taxpayers, suddenly they're not getting income, which means that, you know, they're probably relying on unemployment checks, and their ability to contribute meaningfully to your community and society at large has become more limited. But I think when it comes to Black women in particular, especially Black mothers, we know that 69% of them, according to the Center of American Progress, are breadwinners. Another way I like to think about this too is that Black Women also tend to be highly educated. So what does it mean that 300,000 highly educated individuals are no longer in the workforce? This is a sign of potentially things to come. And we know this is the case because it's happened back in 2008 post-recovery, but we also know that it happened right around the very beginning of COVID-19 where I think Black women's unemployment shot up to 17% or around that, according to the Economic Policy Institute, right? So we really need to be paying attention to Black women in particular, because they tend to be in these communities that are really being upheld by their labor and by their contributions.

Ryssdal: Right, and that's what you and I talked about five years ago at the beginning of the pandemic, as Black women were leaving the workforce, and what it means to to focus on and try to center black women in this economy, which I'm going to get to in a second, but I do want to talk about one thing before we get to that sort of final question, and that is the vulnerability of Black women even when they are powerful and at the top of their game. And the example that, of course, comes to mind specifically with you is Lisa Cook, the Fed governor who President Trump is trying to fire. You two have a relationship. She's been your mentor. You've written together. And yet, because she is a Black woman, she is still vulnerable.

Opoku-Agyeman: One hundred percent. Even her rise to the position that she's in right now was contested. I remember a lot of folks having a lot to say about her qualifications. You know, Governor Cook is one of the most qualified individuals I have ever met in my life. This is a polyglot we're talking about, right? She can speak multiple languages. She worked in the White House, she worked in the Treasury, she worked on the Council of Economic Advisors. She's worked for 4 out of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks. But I think the other aspect of what you're talking about here, if Governor Cook is ousted, right? And really, she's being targeted because this administration thinks that she's the weakest link, right? They're looking at her. They're saying she's a Black woman. If we get rid of her, you know, society sees her as expendable because of the group that she belongs to, we're able then to reshape the Fed. In it's 100-plus year history, we have never seen a sitting Fed Governor be removed. And what does it mean, then, if political whims are really driving the way that the Fed comes together? It means that the data as we know it may be misinterpreted, may be reinterpreted in a way that doesn't actually benefit the American people. This cost that this Black woman is experiencing, that Governor Cook is experiencing, if it's left unaddressed, that reality that we just laid out is inevitable.

Ryssdal: So let's bring it full circle here to what you and I talked about five years ago, about Black women in this economy and what this book is all about. What does it look like if someday we get to a place where Black women are centered in this economy?

Opoku-Agyeman: I love this question so much. Kai, I have to give a shout out to Janelle Jones, who is the first Black woman, right —

Ryssdal: We had her on the program.

Opoku-Agyeman: — To serve as the [first Black] chief economist of the Department of Labor, and she coined a framework that, honestly, for me, has been gospel. Black Women Best, right? And it's the idea that the best outcome for Black women is a better outcome for everyone else. And it's really simple. The folks who are worse off in our society: if you make things better for them, if you're channeling policies to ensure that Black women aren't left behind, you're not leaving behind the poor white guy who's living at a trailer park. He's also being accounted for. In a world or in a country, rather, where, you know, Black women are centered, everybody's life improves. And I think that is the real takeaway from the book, but also the real takeaway from even what we're seeing right now in the current discourse about what's happening with jobs and what's happening with Governor Lisa Cook. You start with Black women as a benchmark for that progress, we'll get further along that goal that we have set for ourselves.