300,000 Black women left the labor force. That's not good for America.

The financial success—or failure—of Black women can have significant consequences.

By Shalise Manza Young

Raise your hand if the following sentence surprises you:

As the Trump regime’s seeming resegregation of the federal workforce continues and the reality of the thousands of jobs summarily eliminated by DOGE becomes clear, it is Black women who have been the most negatively impacted.

Scanning the room, I see no hands raised. Good on you for understanding this country’s centuries of mistreatment of Black women.

Since our national nightmare began anew on Jan. 20, there have been shameless dismissals of Black women in higher-level government roles: Carla Hayden, the first Black person to run the Library of Congress; Gwynne Wilcox, the first Black woman on the National Labor Relations Board; Lt. Gen. Telita Crosland, head of the military’s Defense Health Agency, who retired “abruptly”; and Charlotte A. Burrows, chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. All illustrate that to President Donald Trump and his miscreant minions, apparently only white is right when it comes to leadership roles.

Government data show that in just three months, February to April, 318,000 Black women left the U.S. labor force. The number might be higher now because more dismissals have occurred in the months since.

Though many bureaus have seen some reduction in staff, major slashes have come at the departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Veterans Affairs; at each, the percentage of Black employees was 20% or higher.

Gender economist Katica Roy believes it’s not an accident.

With the reductions, “you’re not just trimming the fat, you’re actually cutting the economic backbone for Black women,” Roy said in a recent ABC News interview. “When we often think about women’s issues or Black women’s issues, we think of it as an ‘over there’ problem. It’s not—it’s an everybody problem.”

Underscoring her point, Roy noted that the drop in Black women’s workforce participation means a $37 billion loss in gross domestic product. Higher employment rates mean higher wages across the board.

Though they represent roughly 6% of the total workforce nationally, data published in 2023 shows Black women made up nearly 12% of the federal workforce before cuts began. We can’t know exactly how many of the cohort were forced out of their jobs since the Office of Personnel Management, a supposedly independent agency, scrubbed all racial demographic information from its public data website in March (probably to appease Dear Leader), but in late February Education Department union leader Sheria Smith said 60 of the 74 workers that had been let go from the department are Black.

The cuts are more than a loss of experience and efficiency. Federal employment has played a significant role in building the Black middle class.

Black veterans were essentially shut out of the post-World War II G.I. Bill that set millions of their white colleagues on a path to generational wealth, further increasing the economic divide between white and Black Americans. But the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act prompted the government to diversify its workforce.

Crucially, civil service jobs provide stability, a chance to climb the ladder that’s not always afforded in the private sector, plus benefits and pensions. And because 25.1% of all federal employees are unionized, compared with just 6% in the private sector, there is often an extra layer of security built in. (The pay gap, however, persists: Black women in civil service are not paid at the same rate as their white woman counterparts, let alone white men.)

Long the most unprotected demographic in America, Black women were relegated to the lowest-paying jobs for generations and still make up a disproportionate share of workers in sectors like child care, retail, and hospitality, A 2019 study shows that many of those jobs will be automated by 2030. Black women have largely been locked out of tech roles and receive essentially pennies of venture capital money. With programs meant to help increase those numbers frequently facing big-money-backed lawsuits crying that it’s discriminatory to only help Black women, that might not change anytime soon.

Thirty-eight percent of young Black women have earned a college degree, but most borrow a significant amount in student loans. Add that to rising inflation because of tariffs and the price of women’s goods already costing more than men’s goods, and it’s easy to see that some might be headed for catastrophe.

Slightly more than half of Black households with children have mothers as the breadwinner, so the financial success—or failure—of Black women can have significant consequences.

“If we take a step back, this is an economic alarm bell,” Roy said.

There’s a truism that says when America gets a cold, Black people get the flu. In this case, Black women seeing alarming job losses is likely a signal that the rest of America’s workforce should start stocking up on Kleenex.

Shalise Manza Young was most recently a columnist at Yahoo Sports, focusing on the intersection of race, gender and culture in sports. The Associated Press Sports Editors named her one of the 10 best columnists in the country in 2020. She has also written for the Boston Globe and Providence Journal. Find her on Bluesky @shalisemyoung.

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