Juneteenth, a federal holiday established by the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act in 2021, commemorates the end of enslavement in the United States on June 19, 1865, a full two years after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect. Since the formal end of race-based enslavement in America, Black Americans have worked to achieve and advance many forms of freedom and liberation, including economic independence, security, and mobility. Now, more than 150 years later, economic policies threaten this progress, and efforts to secure equitable economic opportunities for Black families remains challenging.
Amid mass federal worker layoffs, uncertain tariff policies, and a proposed reconciliation bill that cuts the social safety net and raises taxes on the bottom income quintile of Americans, some economists have warned of growing economic instability and income inequality. This growing inequality would accelerate an already widening racial earnings gap, where Black workers are the only racial group to face greater income inequality in this decade than in the 2000s.
This Juneteenth, as a part of the Black Family Thriving Initiative, we’re exploring the effects of the Trump administration’s economic policies during its first six months and analyzing how these policies are affecting Black workers, families, and business owners in their efforts to achieve financial security and economic mobility. We examined indicators that reflect key employment and financial levers for middle-class stability. Here are six takeaways from our analysis.
1. Federal workforce cuts have disproportionately affected Black middle-class families in the South.
Historically, federal employment has been a critical entry point for Black working families aspiring to enter into the middle class. Federal employment was often one of the primary avenues for highly educated and skilled Black workers to work in higher-paying jobs because of a combination of factors, including nondiscrimination rules in job hiring processes, clearly documented ladders for professional advancement, and generous benefits.
In the past six months, the federal government has cut more than 280,000 federal worker and contractor jobs. The effects of these cuts for Black federal workers, who make up about 18.7 percent of all federal workers, are being felt most acutely in Southern states (Black workers make up more than 35 percent of Georgia and Mississippi’s federal job forces).
2. Rising unemployment is hitting Black women workers especially hard.
The federal job cuts have had an outsized effect on Black women, who are disproportionately represented in some of the agencies most targeted by the administration and whose employment in the federal government has been slashed by nearly a third in the past year. For example, before the layoffs, Black women composed 28 percent of the workforce in the US Department of Education (ED) workforce. ED was one of the departments affected by federal cuts, with 1,950 layoffs.
Relatedly, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, though the overall unemployment rate has not changed from around 4.2 percent in the months since January 2025. As of May, the unemployment rate among Black women has jumped from 5.4 percent in January 2025 to 6.2 percent. This increase is the highest of any of the recorded race and gender groups and accounts for a loss of more than 127,000 jobs between March and May 2025. Although the Black male unemployment rate has decreased since January, it remains at a concerningly high level compared with the overall male unemployment rate.
If Black women’s unemployment continues to rise in the coming months, this could be cause for concern for all workers. Historically, not only are Black Americans more likely to experience layoffs, longer periods of unemployment, and greater disparities in homeownership, but a rising Black unemployment rate can be an early indicator of a broader economic recession.
3. Existing and planned tariffs will disproportionately affect Black-owned small businesses, which already lack key supports.
Small businesses and entrepreneurship are key builders of Black wealth. But the administration’s tariff policies threaten these pathways, particularly in states like Florida, Georgia, Texas, and California, which, according to the 2021 Annual Business Survey, have the greatest number of Black-owned small businesses in the nation.
Significantly reduced operations of the Minority Business Development Agency, cuts to the Small Business Administration’s regional offices, and executive orders curtailing community development financial institutions—which provide critical support to communities underserved by traditional financial institutions—make it more likely that when Black small businesses face rising costs associated with existing and future tariffs, they won’t have the services and safety net necessary to sustain operations.
4. Tariffs could also hit Black farmers, a group that has faced systematic discrimination and economic exclusion, especially hard.
American farmers have been raising the alarm that tariffs will limit American farmers’ ability to compete in key export markets (PDF), raise costs of farming inputs like fertilizer, and create production losses that ultimately force them to cease operations. These challenges are even more acute for Black farmers because more than a century of Black land theft from sharecropping, US Department of Agriculture credit relief discrimination, and titling issues in heirs’ property has limited Black farmers’ ability to withstand economic challenges.
Despite Black farmland ownership having been reduced by more than 90 percent in the past 100 years, according to the 2022 US Census of Agriculture, there are 41,807 Black farmers across the nation. Black farmers are concentrated in states like Texas, Mississippi, and Arkansas, which have more than 10,000, 6,000, and 1,200 Black farmers, respectively.
5. Safety net cuts proposed in the reconciliation bill could have the greatest effects on Black consumers, who are already vulnerable to economic instability.
As consumer confidence drops to levels similar to those during the COVID-19 pandemic and inflation concerns rise because of tariffs, it’s likely US consumers will begin to offset increased costs by depleting savings and increasing credit card use and debt. The effects of the proposed 2025 budget reconciliation bill may further destabilize the economy—with proposed Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program cuts, Medicaid cuts, and tax cuts that would mostly benefit filers with the highest incomes—especially for Black families who stand to see reduced benefits and increased taxes.
Thirty-seven percent of American families don’t have $400 to cover an emergency, but that number is 72 percent for Black households. The workers most at risk of losing their safety net are also those most likely to not have the liquid savings to sustain an economic hit. Black consumers, who in 2022 had a median $1,700 in credit card debt, are entering this uncertain and challenging economic period with the highest share of households with credit card debt, at 56 percent. With fewer resources to manage rising costs and shrinking family budgets, Black families with low incomes are at increased risk of falling into credit card delinquency and higher credit card interest payments.
6. Resumed student loan collections could have an outsized effect on Black households, as Black Americans are those most likely to have student loans.
As of May 5, federal loan repayments have resumed after a long pause that began during the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances, Black households have the most student loan debt, at 36 percent, compared with fewer than 20 percent of white households. Additionally, Black households owe on average $25,000 more in student loan debt than white college graduates. Taken together, disproportionate student loan debt and less available wealth and savings means Black households have fewer resources to draw on during difficult economic periods. This situation could contribute to difficulty meeting basic needs and increased economic uncertainty for Black families.
As we reflect on the remarkable progress Black Americans have made since the end of enslavement and the subsequent periods of de jure and de facto segregation and discrimination in the United States, Juneteenth not only represents an observance to mark the end of a brutal system of dehumanization for Africans and Black Americans. It also marks the beginning of the hope for self-determination and economic independence and progress for Black Americans. With that in mind, some of the administration's economic policies have the potential to disrupt, and in some cases reverse, Black families’ hard-won economic progress.
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