Yohuru Williams and Sheree R. Curry
In 1993, one of us began a prestigious internship at a federal agency. During orientation, a lineup of high-ranking officials, nearly all White, save one person of color, addressed the interns. When the time came to move on to the next stage of the process, an army of Black women entered to shepherd the group through. One of the White male interns leaned over and remarked to another that this must be how the agency fulfilled its “diversity requirement.”
The comment was jolting, not just for its insensitivity but for what it revealed. When confronted, the intern insisted he meant no harm. “I was just stating a fact,” he said.
Moments like that stay with us because they capture a deeper truth about American labor: Black women have always been visible enough to do the work, yet too often invisible when it comes to power, protection and recognition.
As a historian and a journalist, we bring different lenses to this issue but share the same concern: that the losses Black women face in today’s workforce echo a long and painful history of undervaluation. As many Black Americans know, Black women have long been expected to work twice as hard for half the pay and are too often the first to be cut when budgets tighten.
It’s not coincidence; it’s inequity.
Recent reports show that Black women have been disproportionately affected by federal job cuts – an echo of inequities that have persisted for generations. Between February and April, Black women lost more than 300,000 jobs.
Even as the national unemployment rate has changed little, the unemployment rate among Black women has risen sharply, and their employment-to-population ratio – a more stable indicator of economic health – has fallen.
Many Black women in most essential, least celebrated jobs
This is not merely an economic issue; it’s a community crisis. Prior to the cuts, Black women represented nearly 12% of the federal workforce but only about 6% of the overall U.S. workforce, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
They are also concentrated in the very departments most targeted for recent cuts, including Education, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development. Specifically, in the Department of Education, which recently cut 46% of its staff, Black women held 28% of the positions, reports show.
Many of these women have labored in ways that hold the federal government together in its most essential, least celebrated capacities: administrative, technical and support positions that keep the nation functioning. These same women sustain families and the institutions that anchor Black communities – from churches and small businesses to neighborhood associations and civic organizations. When they lose jobs, the ripple effects are profound and incalculable.
This pattern is not new. Over the decades, Black women have been concentrated in undervalued sectors, including education, health care, caregiving and public service, while being underrepresented in higher-paying industries that offer stability and advancement.
And even while Black workers are earning college degrees at a rate that is putting them closer to White college attainment, Black earnings are dropping compared with what White workers are paid.
The “double gap” of race and gender remains a structural feature of the American economy, not a historical footnote.
The federal job cuts expose those inequities once again. And when those cuts fall hardest on Black women, we must see these women not only as economic casualties but as evidence of how the nation continues to undervalue the very people who sustain it.
Employers can push back against inequity
The intern’s offhand remark from 1993 has become a metaphor for our times – proof that the presence of Black women in public service is still mistaken for progress that has been achieved when it is really the constant, quiet labor that keeps progress alive.
Our shared concern is that, amid shifting priorities and shrinking budgets, the country will forget how much its strength depends on the labor and leadership of these women. We cannot afford that amnesia. The roles these women fill are essential. Yet the women who have long done them well are being pushed out. The work will remain, but too often without the women who carried it forward.
While we can’t control every policy decision, employers can control how they respond. We urge leaders to prioritize true retention and advancement by examining who is being most affected by layoffs, and making equity part of every workforce decision.
Consider improving retention by creating upskilling programs for employees whose jobs are most at risk, and by investing in sponsorship, pay equity audits and leadership pipelines that move Black women from support roles to seats at the decision-making table.
Because when Black women fall, communities suffer and the nation falters. But when employers choose to invest in their resilience, everyone rises.
Yohuru Williams is distinguished university chair, professor of history and founding director of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. Sheree R. Curry, an award-winning journalist, is president of the National Association of Black Journalists ‒ Minnesota and a frequent contributor to USA TODAY’s Race in America and Modern Woman special editions. Follow her on LinkedIn: @shereecurry
