The Number That Proves I Am Not the Only One Who Stopped Looking for a Job

In my last post, I told you I stopped looking for a job. Hell yes, I did. And I promised you a number that proves I am not the only one.

I am going to give you that number. But first you need to know how I got here.

I was my own boss first

For most of my life, I worked for myself. In my earlier years I built my own business, set my own hours, named my own prices, and answered to my clients and to God. Nobody had to tell me my worth. I knew it.

Then life shifted. In 2011, I went through a divorce, and I made what I believed was the safe choice. I would go to work for someone else. A steady paycheck. A title. Stability.

What I found was anything but stable.

Training the people who were supposed to lead me

Nine times out of ten, the people in charge did not understand the project or what my role was supposed to accomplish. So I taught them. I trained the very people who were supposed to be supervising me.

The work spoke for itself. People who had never seen what I could do began to praise it. They had no idea I carried those skills, that experience, that level of excellence.

And that is when the climate changed. My immediate supervisor grew intimidated, then jealous, then openly hostile. Suddenly I was being written up for things that did not matter. Every small thing became paperwork. It was never about my performance. It was about building a file, so that I would never be seen as a threat to their position.

I do not stay where I am being torn down. I left.

The next job told the same story with a different cast. The work earned praise. The praise earned resentment. A supervisor who wanted to talk down to me, lash out, and break my spirit. I left that one too.

The line I would not cross

In the last positions I held, the pressure became something different. I was expected to go along with things I knew were wrong, to stay quiet and play along to keep my job.

I refused.

I have never been willing to trade my integrity for a paycheck. God has always taken care of me. He always has, and I truly believe He always will. So when I was asked to choose between my job and my values, there was never really a choice to make.

My refusal came with a price. I paid it, and I would pay it again.

That is when I understood something. I had not lost my place in the working world. I had been reminded of who I always was: a woman who builds her own table.

Here is the number: 13 percent

Between 2024 and 2025, businesses owned by Black women grew 13 percent. Women-owned businesses overall grew about 4.4 percent. We grew about three times faster than everybody else. Black women are now the fastest-growing group of business owners in this country.

That is not an accident. That is a decision. A lot of us made the same one I did.

Why so many of us stopped asking

My story is not rare. Look at what we were up against.

In just three months in the spring of 2025, more than 300,000 Black women were pushed out of the workforce. Layoffs. Federal job cuts. Programs that were supposed to open doors, closed.

Then add age to it. Six in ten workers over 50 have seen or experienced age discrimination at work. Twenty-two percent say they feel like they are being pushed out of their jobs because of their age.

And if you lose your job after 55, finding the next one takes longer. In 2025, job seekers ages 55 to 64 stayed unemployed for an average of 26.7 weeks. That is more than six months of applying, waiting, and hearing nothing.

So no, I was not imagining it. Neither were you.

We did not quit. We built something.

When the door closed, a lot of us did not sit down. We built our own door.

Among Americans over 50 who planned to change jobs in 2025, 16 percent planned to start their own business. The year before, it was 9 percent. That number almost doubled in one year.

That is what 13 percent looks like. It looks like the woman who got laid off on a Tuesday and filed her business paperwork by Friday. It looks like the woman who got tired of training her own boss. It looks like me.

We built our own tables.

A Black woman in her late 50s with silver-streaked natural curls styles a smiling client's natural hair in the plum and gold salon she owns.

A Black woman in her 60s with short silver hair and glasses, wearing an apron, arranges fresh pastries in her own lavender-accented bakery.

A Black woman in her 50s with locs, in a plum sweater, smiles while working on her laptop at the home office where she runs her consulting business.

A Black woman in her late 50s with a natural afro smiles as she helps a customer at the register of her own clothing boutique.

Two Black women business partners in their 50s and 60s laugh and shake hands over a signed contract at a cafe table.

It is not easy. I will not lie to you.

Being your own boss is harder than anything I have ever done. Black women-owned businesses still get a small piece of the money other businesses get. We still have to prove ourselves twice. We still have to ask people to pay our price and not blink when they hesitate.

But here is the difference. Now when I work hard, I am building something that belongs to me. Nobody can write me up for being good at what I do.

So here is my question for you

If you are reading this and you are tired of knocking on doors that will not open, you are not behind. You are not too old. You are part of a number that is growing every single day.

Did you ever have to train your own boss? Did you start something after a job let you down? Tell me in the comments below. I read every single one, and I answer.

Keep reading: Hell Yes, I Stopped Looking for a Job. Why Should I Keep Begging?

Sources

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The Number That Proves I Am Not the Only One