New Report Exposes Trump Federal Government Cuts Target Working Women and People of Color

Washington, D.C. (May 6, 2025) – A new report by the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) reveals that women and people of color make up a majority of the federal workers in departments targeted by the Trump administration. The report exposes how the administration’s sweeping attacks on the federal workforce particularly harms women and people of color by eliminating jobs that provide greater stability, benefits, and pay equity relative to jobs across all industries. 

Note: In March 2025, the Trump administration removed current and historic diversity data, which includes race and ethnicity indicators for the federal workforce, from the Office of Personnel Management’s main public data website. NWLC was able to conduct its analysis with saved data on file that reflects the federal workforce as of September 2024. 

Among the report’s findings:

  • While women made up 46% of the total federal workforce in September 2024, they represented a substantial majority of the workforce in five Cabinet-level departments targeted so far for large-scale layoffs: the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) (64%), the Department of Education (63%), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Department of the Treasury (61%), and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) (59%).  
  • People of color made up 41% of the overall federal workforce in September 2024, but they made up a majority of workers in HUD (56%), the Department of Education (54%), Treasury (54%), and HHS (52%).  
    • Black workers make up 36% of the workforce in both the Department of Education and HUD, which is double their representation in the overall federal workforce (18%).
    • Indigenous workers were overrepresented in some federal agencies, including at the Interior Department, where Trump has proposed cutting one-quarter of staff.  
    • Latino workers made up 11% of the entire federal workforce but 23% of the workers in the Department of Homeland Security, 15% of the workers in the Department of the Treasury, and 13% of the workers in the Department of Labor.  
  • Women made up a majority of the workforce of a number of independent agencies that have been targeted for massive reductions or elimination of local field offices including at: 
    • The Social Security Administration, where women make up 66% of the workforce.
    • The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where they make up 62%.
  • Women also made up a greater share of probationary workers in the federal government, including 72% of probationary workers in the Department of Education and 69% of probationary workers at the VA. The Trump administration has sought to terminate probationary workers en masse. 

“The administration’s attack on the federal workforce is an attack on economic opportunities and the progress this country has made in leveling the playing field. These rapid, large-scale cuts and terminations disproportionately harm women and people of color,” said Sarah Javaid, author of the report and senior research analyst at NWLC. “Federal jobs have long provided a path to the middle class — especially for Black workers, women and others who face workplace discrimination — because of their stability, union representation, opportunities for promotion, workplace benefits, and commitment to fair and transparent pay. But Trump is hellbent on furthering his anti-diversity, anti-equity, anti-inclusion agenda that not only harms workers, but cuts agencies that serve all of us.”

The full report can be found here: https://nwlc.org/resource/attacks-on-the-federal-workforce-target-women-and-people-of-color/