300,000 Black Women Have Left the Labor Force in 3 Months. It’s Not a Coincidence.

In just three months, nearly 300,000 Black women left the U.S. labor force. Their labor force participation rate has now dropped below that of Latinas for the first time in over a year. And more than 518,000 Black women still haven’t returned to the labor force since the pandemic began, leaving their real unemployment rate just above 10 percent.

This isn’t a coincidence. It’s the result of federal policy choices — most immediately, sweeping job cuts across public-sector agencies where Black women have long held the strongest foothold in middle-class employment.

Agencies like the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services have seen dramatic reductions in staff — up to 50 percent in some cases. These are not just institutional losses. They represent the disappearance of stable, often well-paying jobs that historically provided economic security to Black women and the families they support.

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For decades, the public sector has served as a lifeline for Black women shut out of opportunity elsewhere in the economy. Black women make up over 12 percent of the federal workforce — almost double their share of the labor force overall. These roles offer not only pensions and benefits, but more equitable pay than the private sector, where wage gaps remain entrenched.

That infrastructure is now eroding at pace. Beginning in early 2025, a wave of federal downsizing — justified as “efficiency reforms” — has disproportionately hit jobs in education, health, and community-facing roles. These are the very sectors where Black women are concentrated.

And as federal budgets shrink, the effects ripple through state and local governments. When public school funding dries up or health departments are hollowed out, it’s often pink-collar jobs held by Black women that are first on the chopping block.

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