On 30 May 2025, Dr Ravon Alford received an email from leadership at her job that the federal government had chosen to revoke the organization’s active federal grants. At the time, Alford, who’s 33, had been working as a senior policy analyst at a criminal justice reform non-profit organization in Detroit. As a result of the budget cuts, all work related to projects that were funded by these grants were ceased. Organization-wide layoffs followed, affecting Alford and 75% of the staff.
Alford is among the nearly 300,000 Black women who exited the US labor force in just three months – a shift tied directly to federal policy decisions. The most immediate cause has been sweeping cuts across public-sector agencies, historically one of the few reliable pathways to middle-class stability for Black women. Though they make up just more than 6% of the overall workforce, Black women account for more than 12% of federal employees. These positions have long offered pensions, benefits and more equitable pay than the private sector, where wage disparities remain stubbornly fixed.
“It was an extremely traumatic experience for me because this was my first time ever being laid off,” said Alford, who once viewed the public sector as a stable industry. “Had I been laid off because of my own merit, then it would’ve been easier for me to deal with. But it was just the fact that this administration chose to not prioritize something that we actually were aligned with in the last administration cost me my job.” Since the layoffs, Alford has witnessed some of her Black female former co-workers exiting corporate America all together and pursuing entrepreneurial paths. The experience has changed Alford’s view on how to navigate the workplace as well: “Now I’m taking care of myself and not allowing my identity to be fully within a job.”
Working under the constant threat of job loss can create a psychological climate of fear. “For African American women, that fear isn’t just about employment. It’s about identity, safety and dignity in spaces where we’re already underrepresented and under-resourced,” said Dr Rajanique Modeste, an industrial and organizational psychologist and author of After the Layoff: Reclaiming Power When Stability Disappears. “It shows up in how we engage, or don’t engage, with leadership, and influences how safe we feel speaking up.”
In unstable work environments, self-advocacy is often the first casualty, Modeste says. When job security feels shaky, most employees retreat into survival mode. “It becomes a heads-down situation,” explained Modeste. “People avoid drawing attention to themselves out of fear they might be next on the chopping block.”
Even for Black women who have been spared from layoffs at their organization, the sense of belonging and psychological safety might wither. “For Black women, connections at work often serve as more than just friendships. They can be a crucial part of navigating the workplace,” said Modeste. “When others are let go, it often means the loss of community, a safety net and a sense of stability. Suddenly, you may find yourself alone in spaces where you once felt supported.”
For Duke, a 28-year-old account supervisor in Washington DC, who survived three rounds of company-wide layoffs at her advertising agency after the current administration ended federal contracts with the organization, the months since April have been marked by constant anxiety and feeling a need to overperform. She described waking in the middle of the night, bracing herself for an email from HR or her manager signaling she’d be next. “Every Sunday I was checking my emails to see if I had an invite,” said Duke, who’s using an alias because she is still employed at her company. “Going into the office, the morale was low. You couldn’t really plan ahead, because you didn’t know if this would be your last paycheck.” That uncertainty seeped into her personal life as well. When her lease was up for renewal, she delayed signing until the very last minute. “I just didn’t know if I was going to have a job,” she explained.
As a first-generation college graduate, Duke had grown up believing higher education would provide stability. “You’re told to get your degree and you’ll be set for life,” she said. But the reality she’s facing in corporate America has been far different: “One minute you’re on top and doing great, and the next you’re laid off. We’ve seen that across every sector: tech, healthcare and now even the federal space.” In June, Black women faced the longest job searches of any group, spending an average of more than six months unemployed before securing new work.
For Black women like her, that volatility doesn’t just undermine career expectations; it chips away at a sense of security they were told was within reach. Similar to Alford, Duke had once considered the public sector a safe haven. “I was so excited because you always hear that the public sector is the safest. Once you’re in, you’re in for life,” she explained. The sudden unraveling of that assumption was devastating: “To have that ripped away is jarring.”
The rupture goes beyond lost income; it disrupts mental health and future planning. Instead of imagining long-term career growth, many Black women are recalibrating around avoidance. “From what I’ve seen, and what I agree with, a lot of people are going to stay away from the public sector for at least the next three years because it feels so unstable,” Duke said.
Even when companies insist that a round of layoffs has ended, the residue of fear lingers. Workers understand, deep down, that performance alone cannot protect them from business decisions. “That uncertainty creates silence,” Modeste said. “People stop asking for promotions, raises or accommodations – not because they don’t want or deserve them, but because they’re trying not to make waves. Staying under the radar starts to feel safer than speaking up.”
That silence can be especially fraught for Black women. The pressure to prove they belong, to avoid being labeled “difficult” or “demanding”, compounds the risk of speaking out. “In moments when self-advocacy is most needed, fear of retaliation or being misunderstood can keep people quiet,” Modeste noted. Over time, that quiet takes a psychological toll. “It chips away at morale and self-worth. It reinforces the idea that your needs don’t matter, or that asking for more puts your job at risk.”
The stress of layoffs isn’t just about surviving the present – it’s about facing a future that feels increasingly unpredictable. Even as Black women push through the daily strain of keeping their jobs, the prospect of losing one carries its own spiral of uncertainty. “It all takes a toll on your mental health,” Duke said. “There’s only so much you can do when it feels like the whole system is set up to have you fail.” At the end of this month, Duke will find out whether her team’s federal contract will be renewed.
