28-05-2025
Fired, Rehired, Fired Again. Massive Federal Cuts Leave Black Workers Reeling
is a multipart series that explores the impact of the Trump administration's restructuring of the federal government on Black communities.
Regina Fuller-White had been applying for various roles at the United States Agency for International Development for more than a year, filling out applications whenever a new position opened up only to hear 'no' weeks later. She had even hired a career coach to help with the process.
Finally, in 2024, she landed her dream job: a contracting position as a monitoring, evaluation, and learning adviser with USAID's gender equality and women's empowerment hub. She moved from Wisconsin to Maryland a few months before the October start date.
But by the end of February 2025, Fuller-White was among the thousands of USAID workers who had been fired as the Trump administration and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, which isn't a Cabinet-level department, took a chain saw to the 63-year-old agency of more than 10,000 people.
'I relocated my life for this role, and the agency doesn't even exist anymore. The financial part of this has been tough,' Fuller-White, 37, told Capital B, adding that there's been an implosion of the international development sector because of the administration's actions.
'It's been gut-wrenching. This is the career I've spent my entire life preparing for,' she said. 'If I don't do international work, what am I supposed to do?'
In a matter of months, at least 121,000 federal workers have been cut or targeted for firing, according to a recent analysis by CNN. These layoffs haven't only led to the loss of critical data on maternal mortality, public safety, and more — they've also struck a devastating psychological blow to employees, who must navigate professional chaos while also being vilified by President Donald Trump and his allies as 'crooked' and 'dishonest.'
Such upheaval has long been shown to fuel mental distress. People who spoke with Capital B relayed feeling a deep sense of anxiety and dislocation in the wake of the cuts.
Research has shown that people have ranked being fired as causing greater trauma than losing a close friend or experiencing the breakup of their family.
Established on Trump's first day in office, DOGE has consistently framed its work within agencies as a way to slash what it views as wasteful spending and unnecessary bureaucracy, though many of its claims about savings appear to be inaccurate or misleading.
When Capital B called the White House switchboard in an attempt to reach DOGE, the office said that it has 'no contact information for DOGE.' An email to a congressional DOGE caucus received an automated response detailing the mission of the caucus and encouraging people to submit their ideas.
One of the agencies that's been hit the hardest by the administration's overhaul of the federal government is the U.S. Department of Education. In March, more than 1,300 of its employees — about half the staff — were laid off. Black workers were disproportionately affected, per documents sent to union officials by the agency.
'I'm hearing a lot of distress from my Black members,' Sheria Smith, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, a union that represents workers at the education department, told Capital B. 'They're asking: 'Well, if the federal government can do this — make arbitrary decisions about leave and termination — what hope do we have in the private sector?''
She was referring to the fact that, compared with the private sector, the federal service has traditionally offered more robust protections against discrimination. These protections are a key part of what made federal employment attractive to Black Americans, who saw this work as a way to secure steady pay and enter the middle class.
This was true for Smith. She grew up in a lower-income home in Gary, Indiana, and she was a fifth-grade teacher in Texas before she went to law school at the University of Texas at Austin. When a civil rights attorney position opened up at the education department, she jumped at the opportunity to marry her background as a teacher with her experience as a lawyer while also enjoying a reliable form of employment.
She was among the 1,300 agency workers laid off in March. A federal judge in May ordered that the employees be reinstated; the administration has vowed to challenge the ruling.
A particularly troubling aspect of the federal job cuts, Smith explained, is that paychecks haven't been consistent. She said that the union has received calls from several members who had been told that they'd be paid until June, but their paychecks have been late — and they have bills to pay.
'It's been gut-wrenching. This is the career I've spent my entire life preparing for,' she said. 'If I don't do international work, what am I supposed to do?'
Regina Fuller-White, a former employee with the United States Agency for International Development
For probationary workers — those who were newly hired and whose employment rights haven't kicked in — things have been even more chaotic. These workers have been on a roller coaster, as some have been fired, rehired, and fired again while lawsuits against the administration continue. This back-and-forth has resulted in months of uncertainty and doubt, with probationary employees struggling to figure out how to hold their lives together.
'We have had at least two [probationary] employees report that they have spouses battling cancer, and their spouses can't get their transfusions because their medical facility told them that their health insurance isn't current,' Smith said. 'When they tried to contact the agency — the people in charge — to get the situation righted, well, those people had been laid off, too.'
This stress has been felt across the federal workforce.
For instance, the Veterans Crisis Line, a 24/7 hotline that offers support to military veterans and their loved ones, has noticed a surge in calls from employees at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. An internal memo said that the department plans on slashing 80,000 jobs. Workers have been flooding the hotline, overwhelmed by the turmoil at the agency, which employs more than 400,000 people and is the second-largest agency after the U.S. Department of Defense.
'[Call-takers] are talking to them about their homicidal thoughts, their suicidal thoughts,' Erika Alexander, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 518, a union that represents workers at the Veterans Crisis Line, recently told CNN.
She's also concerned about the impact that layoffs are having on hotline staff.
'There's going to be a lapse in the resources and the services that they get,' Alexander added. 'If there are not enough employees to be there for the crisis hotline, then that's going to definitely cause a lapse in the mission, which is veteran safety — it will be a very significant lapse.'
Figuring out how to cope with the federal workforce reduction has been difficult, Cornelia Poku, who experienced the do-I-still-have-a-job roller coaster at the community service-oriented agency AmeriCorps, told Capital B.
Children horsed around in the background as she babysat. It's work that's far different from her responsibilities as a marketing and communications specialist for AmeriCorps Seniors, which organizes volunteer opportunities for people 55 years old and older.
As a probationary employee, she was let go in February. Weeks later, she was reinstated. But by mid-April, she and her colleagues had learned that the agency of around 500 full-time employees would be downsizing and that they could accept the deferred resignation program, allowing them to resign and still receive paid leave for a period of time. She took the offer, believing that she had two more weeks of work — but they 'pulled the plug' just days later, she recalled.
'I've been sad and anxious and angry for months. I feel helpless. I feel like so much is out of my control,' said Poku, 34, adding that she tries to think through the situation logically, but nothing makes sense. 'Why would you create mass unemployment? Why would you dismantle a program that helps people give back to their communities?
Poku has been dealing with the shaky state of her professional life by recommitting to some of her personal passions — including her work as a content creator.
Under the TikTok handle @blackgirlsexploredc, Poku, who was born and raised in the Washington, D.C., region, covers the area's restaurants, historical sites, and more for her 37,000 followers. She often focuses on Black-owned establishments.
These days, she said, she's relying on this work 'even more for escapism.'
Fuller-White has been immersing herself in her community, too. There are a lot of USAID Signal groups, she said, and she and her former colleagues hang out during what was their normal meeting time on Wednesday mornings. The experience has allowed her to forge new relationships with ex-USAID employees she never knew.
'That's been really helpful,' she explained, 'since we're all going through this together. It kind of feels like being a part of a sorority that I never wanted to be a part of. I just feel less alone, less like it's just me.'
With a laugh, Fuller-White noted that she's always loved strength training. Since the USAID layoffs, she has been doing strength training around four times a week, which has been 'really good' for her mental health.
To stave off a potential mental health crisis, The Therapist Recruitment Project, a grassroots network of dozens of licensed therapists, offers free and low-cost sessions to federal employees.
'In natural disasters, they have mental health services to help deal with the trauma. This is a man-made disaster, and we should have people on the line to help,' Rosalyn Beroza, who launched the network, told Axios earlier this year.
As fortifying as some activities are, the turbulence that current and former federal workers are confronting is still demoralizing, particularly when it's paired with language from Trump and his associates that casts them as lazy, according to Fuller-White.
'The rhetoric hurts. I remember my workload and my team's workload. I'd never done so much work in my life,' Fuller-White said. 'We had the internships. We had the degrees. We had all the things that Black people, especially, are told to have to get these roles. It's painful to hear anyone discount all the skills and talent we brought to the work we did — to the work we really cared about.'
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