Much of the Black middle class was built by federal jobs. That may change.

NBC News

22-02-2025

When Francine Verdine took a job as a clerk at the Internal Revenue Service in Houston in 1983, it was supposed to be a stopgap until something better came along. She didn't expect that 42 years later, she would look back on it as the start of a rewarding career that provided growth in various management positions, upward mobility and the opportunity to build a comfortable life for her family.
'I enjoyed my career,' said Verdine, who retired in 2019. 'I had no idea when I started that I could make the money I did by the time I left. It's sad that many others' opportunity to have a similar career could be over.'
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.
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.
Many Black people could build careers through the federal government typically because the private sector overlooked them, regardless of their qualifications, he said. 'And so, the federal government has been essential to the building of the Black middle class.'
A worker at the Department of Transportation in Washington, D.C, who requested anonymity for fear of being fired, said several workers in his office have been fired for 'poor performance.'
'Morale is so low,' he said. 'People who should be there are gone. Everyone is nervous about the next shoe dropping.'
He said he has 16 years on the job and was planning to retire in four. 'I wanted to do an even 20, maybe even 25. But I have to be honest with myself now: I don't think I'm going to make it. Every indicator is that my head will be chopped off sooner or later. How can anyone be productive with that hanging over you?'
Undoing DEI to cut the federal workforce
The president's sweeping changes began with ending DEI throughout the government, weaponizing it as a 'destructive ideology ' along the way. Countless jobs have been lost in an area that was created to develop fair hiring opportunities.
'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.'
Verdine said it's no secret that the government could be streamlined, but added that the way the administration is going about it is 'disheartening.'
'There's no humanity in what's happening right now,' she said. 'No organization. It's just chaos and people being hurt.'
Among those facing the chaos are Verdine's daughter and daughter-in-law, who have disabilities, and are federal workers at the Food and Drug Administration. Under Schedule A, workers with disabilities are allowed a faster hiring process, but their probationary periods are longer than a standard federal employee.
Her family members were reluctant to speak with NBC News about their worries for the future for fear of reprisal. Verdine said they are rightfully fearful, as disabilities are a part of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs that Trump barred two days after being sworn in.
'You cannot tell where this will go,' she said. 'My daughter and daughter-in-law live in uncertainty. At any time, based on how this has been going, they can get the call that their job is no more.'
The Trump administration did not respond to requests for comment.
Verdine stressed that she had to be qualified for the jobs and promotions she obtained, and in some cases, she felt as though she had to be 'overly qualified' for positions that she had seen white people, men and women, get with less education, less experience than she had. 'As a matter of fact, I had to train some of those same people. So, the idea that DEI was some pathway to giving Black people jobs, that just wasn't true,' she said.
Smith, from Local 252, said that although the federal jobs cuts are not labeled as DEI casualties, the pattern is curious.
'We are concerned as a union that the vagueness of a lot of these executive orders and their implementation are actually a means or pretext to get rid of Black, brown, female members of this workforce for reasons that may not be complying with the law,' Smith said. She added that the majority of people who've been forced out by this administration ostensibly based on DEI do not work in DEI, but 'they happen to be Black.'
In addition to regulating America's schools, the Department of Education enforces Title VI 'to make sure that Black and brown students across this country are getting equitable access to education,' Smith said. 'That work has been stopped. … We've been told to stop working for the American people.'
Forced into early retirement
Ros Patterson, a 62-year-old benefits department worker at the Veterans Administration in Cole Valley, Illinois, received a phone call on Jan. 28 telling her she had been let go after nearly a year. She said she was told she had 90 minutes to turn in her company laptop.
Flustered and confused, because she was not given a reason for her firing at the time, Patterson drove to Iowa City, Iowa, her closest federal office, and learned that no one there was aware that she was to drop off her laptop — or had papers for her to sign confirming her termination.
Eventually, someone helped her. About 30 minutes later she learned from now-former colleagues that all VA workers had been offered a buyout that included eight months pay as part of a severance package.
As a probationary employee, she said she was not eligible for it. 'I could have used that paycheck as I looked for another job,' Patterson said.
She had not planned to retire, but losing her job forced her to, she said, so she could maintain a semblance of her old life. 'I wasn't left any choice,' said Patterson, who now receives food stamps, is on Medicaid and was approved for Section 8 senior housing. 'I understand probationary employees are quick and easy to fire. But it was done in such a duplicitous manner.'
She said she voted for Trump, the orchestrator of the chaos in her life, but is 'not bitter. It is what it is. I'm not blaming Trump. My thing is how it happened. I had no time to process anything or get myself together. It's cold the way it was done,' she said. 'You'd expect the government to do better.'