Much of the Black middle class was built by federal jobs. That may change. 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. They played a crucial role in helping Black workers like Verdine 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 government, which has about 3 million employees, is the largest employer in the country. At least 75,000 of them accepted buyout offers and thousands were fired in the last several weeks. Many of the workers fired were either newer hires or told they were let go for subpar performance. “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, a move that will have dramatic repercussions around the country. Nearly 30% of Education employees are Black according to a 2024 report by the department. Smith said 74 workers at the department had been let go so far, 60 of whom are Black. At the Department of Health and Human Services, where more than 1,300 new hires were reportedly laid off, 20% of the staff was Black. And at the Department of Veterans Affairs, which recently lost 1,000 employees, 24% are Black.
So Trump laying off Federal employees is just part of his white supremacist plan to stick it to the blacks --- by eliminating the black middle class and forcing them back into poverty. Yeah, we got it.
The amusing part is that over the course of the next two years we get to see how essential many of these employees were as critical portions of the federal government that citizens and businesses rely on effectively cease to operate.
The private sector does reductions in force all of the time without adverse consequences. There's a lot of fat to be cut in the Federal government.
If you cut your workforce then you do it in an intelligent well-thought out manner. Not in the way that DOGE is doing it.