The stigma faced by unemployed Americans places a toll on their wellbeing and decreases their life chances. While all unemployed Americans are subject to stigmatization, the stigma levied on Black Americans may be particularly potent due to racializing stereotypes that associate Blackness with the undeserving poor, including the inability to obtain employment. Given the social and economic challenges Black people face, research elucidating the racial complexities of unemployment stigma is needed. Through in-depth open format face-to-face interviews of unemployed individuals residing in urban and suburban areas, this study produces an alternative perspective on how impression management techniques are connected to both internalization and mitigation of unemployment stigma. This study contributes to employment, race, and stigma literature by providing a theoretical frame that synthesizes Du Boisian and dramaturgical concepts to conceptualize an “unemployed worker-self.” Through this framing, I find variations across race and community type in impression management techniques executed by unemployed people. I conclude with suggestions for future research and potential applications for the theoretical frame developed in this study.

失业的美国人面临的耻辱影响了他们的福祉并减少了他们的生活机会。虽然所有失业的美国人都会受到污名化，但由于种族化的刻板印象，将黑人与不值得的穷人联系在一起，包括无法获得就业，对美国黑人的污名化可能尤其严重。鉴于黑人面临的社会和经济挑战，需要进行研究来阐明失业耻辱的种族复杂性。通过对居住在城市和郊区的失业人员进行深入的开放式面对面访谈，本研究提出了关于印象管理技术如何与失业耻辱的内在化和减轻联系起来的另一种视角。这项研究通过提供一个综合杜波依斯和戏剧概念来概念化“失业工人自我”的理论框架，为就业、种族和耻辱文学做出了贡献。通过这个框架，我发现失业者执行的印象管理技术在不同种族和社区类型之间存在差异。最后，我对本研究中开发的理论框架的未来研究和潜在应用提出了建议。