Black women were disproportionately impacted by DOGE cuts. A year later, they're rebuilding careers for themselves and each other

This time last year, Victoria Chege’s career with the federal workforce ended nearly as soon as it had started.

Chege took her role with the Department of Health and Human Services in December 2024. By February 2025, she became part the “Valentine’s Day massacre.” That’s what some federal staffers call the weekend when tens of thousands of them got emails saying they were being let go.

The Trump administration was starting to cut down the federal workforce through its new Department of Government Efficiency, and they were some of the first to go.

Among those disproportionately impacted were Black women, who make up 12% of the federal workforce (almost double their 7% share in the overall U.S. workforce) and experienced the largest federal employment losses between 2024 and 2025, says Valerie Wilson, a labor economist and director of the Economic Policy Institute’s program on race, ethnicity and the economy.

The DOGE cuts, which continued for several months, contributed to a disturbing trend: Black women’s unemployment rate skyrocketed to a high of 7.5% in September 2025, compared to 4.4% unemployment among all U.S. workers at that time.