For decades, the federal government provided both reliable jobs and guardrails to offset systemic racial bias in hiring and promotions, offering an alternative for Black workers who might be overlooked or ignored in the private sector. Those jobs played a crucial role in helping Black workers join the middle class and thrive. But vast cuts by the Trump administration, led by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, are threatening to close down that once-dependable path to financial stability.
“The federal workforce was a means to help build Black middle class. It hired Black Americans at a higher rate than private employers,” said Sheria Smith, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents the Education Department employees.
As a part of his efforts, President Trump is angling to shut down the Department of Education. Nearly 30% of Education employees are Black, according to a 2024 report by the department.
At the Department of Health and Human Services, 20% of the staff was Black. At the Department of Veterans Affairs, 24% are Black.
These numbers illustrate how important government jobs have been and are for Black people, said Marcus Casey, a fellow in the Economic Studies program at the Brookings Institution. He said the administration’s efforts are trying to undermine the gains of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination on the basis of race and other characteristics, and of affirmative action, which began in the federal government to make the hiring and promoting process more inclusive.
“Whether it was from the post office, through direct growth of federal agencies, through the military — the government fought against the headwinds associated with the private sector,” said Casey, an affiliated scholar with Brookings’ Future of Middle Class Initiative.
Undoing DEI to Cut the Federal Workforce
“A lot of Black people not only benefited from what they call DEI now, but the original affirmative action programs, and the veteran preferences,” Casey said. “That combination helped a lot of people get a foothold in the civil service.” These efforts, he said, “helped people get middle-class salaries and build middle-class lives with an ecosystem of race-specific businesses around Black communities.”