We investigated the development of students' sociopolitical consciousness via engagement in a mathematical activity purposefully designed around understanding the unemployment rate in the US. Qualitative data was collected from 12 university seniors participating in an online capstone class. Results showed that students: (1) further developed interpreting data visualizations, (2) understood the nature of the unemployment rate in the United States (i.e. how data is collected, how it is calculated, and how it behaves over time), (3) developed an understanding of the inequality in the US social and political structure, and (4) developed a more critical lens or more critical consciousness by questioning and critiquing the status quo. This study shows that the Unemployment Rate task can be implemented to bridge the disconnect between the mathematics classroom and real-world applications, and may eventually affect a "liberatory social change". [For the complete proceedings, see ED658295.]