In 2025, hundreds of thousands of Black women lost their jobs. The Trump administration is why.
This article originally appears in the Winter 2026 print issue of Ms., under the headline “Out of Work and Out of Options.” Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox.
The numbers are staggering. Between February and July of 2025, Black women lost 319,000 jobs in the U.S. labor market.
By comparison, white women saw a job increase of 142,000; Latina women saw an increase of 176,000 jobs; and white men saw the largest increase of all groups, with a gain of 365,000 jobs during the same five-month period.
This glaring disparity is attributed to a myriad of factors, most notably the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts of federal jobs—some 300,000 in just one year, according to the director of the Office of Personnel Management.
Katica Roy, a gender economist who has done a deep dive into this data, says there is a shift happening in the labor force that favors men in general, and white men in particular. And Black women—who historically have found more job security as well as upward mobility in federal employment—are now seeing those federal jobs slip away in record numbers.
“Black women make up 6 percent of the labor force in the United States overall, and their representation in the federal labor force was about twice that, about 12 percent. When the job cuts happened [prior to the most recent government shutdown], Black women made up 33 percent of those federal job cuts,” Roy says.
The meritocracies were not designed for women. They were not designed for Black women. Essentially, what that did was to optimize our institutions for exclusion but called it ‘excellence.’
Katica Roy, gender economist
Besides slashing thousands of federal jobs, the Trump administration put a freeze on hiring. Trump also issued an executive order that directs federal agencies to eliminate all programs and new hires the administration considers to be diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) related, calling these programs and initiatives illegal and wasteful, promising that the federal government will return to merit-based hiring and rid the system of discriminatory “equity” quotas.
According to Roy, the data shows that meritocracies do not exist.
“The meritocracies were not designed for women. They were not designed for Black women. Essentially, what that did was to optimize our institutions for exclusion but called it ‘excellence,’” she says.
While the Trump administration claims its federal employment reforms will reward employees for good performance while ensuring that agencies can hold employees accountable for misconduct or poor performance, Gaylynn Burroughs, vice president for education and workplace justice at the National Women’s Law Center, views the administration’s actions as targeting programs that help women and people of color.
“What we know is that there was an attack on the federal government workforce … and the vast majority of [the jobs lost] were held by women,” Burroughs notes. “And we also know that the places that were targeted for job cuts in the federal government are places where we see a disproportionate number of women and people of color, and, in particular, Black women.”
According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Black women have the highest unemployment rate among women: It was 7.1 percent in November, compared to 3.4 percent for white women and 4.4 percent for Latinas. Black men have an even higher unemployment rate, which is far higher than the rate for white men.
Burroughs says these numbers represent a warning sign for what’s on the horizon.
“What we are seeing happening is a federal government that is intent on creating a DEI boogeyman to radically change how workplaces operate in ways that disadvantage women, people of color and LGBTQ workers,” she says.
Burroughs continues, saying, “Black women are often seen as a bellwether when it comes to looking at what’s happening with the economy. They tend to feel the effects of an economic downturn pretty early on, and have a harder time recovering from job loss”—like Celéna Grant, a 55- year-old Black woman in Florida with a master’s degree in public administration with a concentration in human resources. Grant spent most of her career in state government until she was let go. She filed a lawsuit claiming unfair termination and won. Since then, she says she’s been on an employment roller coaster trying to recover her professional footing.
“I have worked in nonprofit, I have worked in for-profit, and I have found that the older that I’ve gotten, it has become more difficult to find meaningful work and [be] in a place where you are paid respectfully related to that work. Experience seems to be a hindrance in the current climate we are in right now, [when you’re] a woman of a certain age and African American. Despite trying, despite following all the rules, despite being qualified, it’s just been tough. It’s been very, very, very tough,” Grant says.
Last year, she began working for a small Black-women-owned company, and for the first time in a long time, she found that she could finally exhale. She felt she was where she was supposed to be, and that all the struggles and challenges had gotten her there. She could show up without apology, without masks. Then came the Trump administration, and Grant was furloughed without pay. She had no job, no income, no benefits.
“I found myself no longer wanting to be in the human resources arena … because it’s not what it used to be. We’ve taken compassion, we’ve taken the people out of it. And this administration has disheartened me on every level—professionally, personally and just in terms of being a human being. And I think to myself, This can’t be, this can’t be America. In 2025, we have leaders in our country who are willing to allow people to suffer for political gain,” Grant laments. “I don’t know what the American dream is anymore.”
You feel like you are a visitor in the land of the poor people, and you don’t want to become a resident.
Elizabeth White
Grant is not alone. She and hundreds of thousands of women across the country are experiencing similar dilemmas—a state of being that author Elizabeth White writes about in one of her latest books, Fifty-Five, Unemployed, and Faking Normal. White says the book speaks to her own lived experience and that of other women who shared their stories with her.
“I remember talking to my good friend who is an Emmy Award-winning producer, and she couldn’t find work. And then I am talking to another MBA, and she couldn’t find work; a high-level former government employee, she couldn’t find work. And it was in a moment of despair that I wrote an essay describing what this felt like. You are suddenly looking through a window at a light that is no longer yours,” White says. “You feel like you are a visitor in the land of the poor people, and you don’t want to become a resident.”
The essay was posted in a magazine geared to older adults, and according to White, thousands of people responded.
“I have the background to look at the data,” White says. “And when I looked at the data, I saw that this was not, in fact, an individual problem, or a problem for me and a few friends, that this was a national crisis where a majority of people would not have enough money to maintain their current standard of living.”
I am 50 now, and as Black women, our options reduce as we get older.
Nadia Mondésir
It is a problem that keeps many Black women up at night—including 50-year-old Nadia Mondésir, who recently lost her job at a New York employment law firm where she worked as an account coordinator managing the finances for seven of the firm’s offices. Mondésir says the firm had experienced a tumultuous year, including restructuring in which several people were let go.
This is not the first time that Mondésir has been laid off from a job in her field, and she sees this as her last chance to pivot to more rewarding work, she says, “because I am 50 now, and as Black women, our options reduce as we get older.” Mondésir adds that she hopes to use her finance degree and experience to help other immigrant women like herself navigate the finance system in America, which she says is completely different than in the Caribbean, where she’s from.
Black women like Mondésir say they not only need support from advocates and advocacy organizations, but they also want to see policy solutions that address the inequities in the labor market and the challenges women are facing in finding meaningful work.
Katherine Gallagher-Robbins, a senior fellow with the National Partnership for Women and Families, says her organization is working with the National Women’s Law Center, along with a host of other advocacy groups, to advance a progressive national policy platform to support women’s participation in the workforce and the economy.
The initiative is part of the 75 Million campaign, which includes proactive and defensive strategies to combat workplace discrimination and to educate and amplify efforts to pass legislation that promotes the economic stability of working women. Gallagher-Robbins says the campaign will focus on what’s happening with the 75 million working women in America.
“There is a huge attack on diversity, equity and inclusion, which we know are attacks on all working women—targeting civil rights protections, targeting protections on pregnancy discrimination. This campaign is really focused on making sure that we become the bulwark against these attacks, and letting people know what’s happening, [how we’re] organizing against them,” she says. “But also painting the picture for what the future [looks like] where civil rights are protected for all women.
“What does it look like to have an inclusive economy that benefits all women?”
Great Job Belle Taylor-McGhee & the Team @ Ms. Magazine for sharing this story.
