It is no accident that Black women are being disproportionately affected by Trump’s cuts to the federal workforce. In the past 120 days, approximately 300,000 Black women have been forced out of the workforce in tech, finance, healthcare, DEI, and the federal government. In January 2025, Black women comprised 12 percent of the federal workforce, nearly twice the national average. Tragically, Dr. Lisa Cook, the first Black woman to serve as a Federal Reserve Governor, received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley. Unsurprisingly, she’s now on the chopping block. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley has rightly pointed out that Black women’s employment is a “key metric of the health of the U.S. economy while urging Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to ensure the highest level of employment for all workers, especially Black women, since the latest job report indicated a high unemployment rate.
