As the Trump administration seeks to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs across government, a new report argued that the president’s mass removals of federal employees are likely to disproportionately impact women and minorities.
“In his sweeping attacks on federal agencies, Trump is not only decimating services that women and families rely on, but also eliminating good jobs for workers who deserve the security, benefits and pay equity the federal government can provide,” according to an analysis released on Tuesday by the National Women’s Law Center, a nonprofit focused on women’s and LGBTQ rights. “The result of Trump’s attack on the federal workforce is directly aligned with his anti-diversity and anti-equity agenda that aims to harm women and people of color.”
The report pointed out that the departments with the three highest percentages of female employees — Veterans Affairs (64%), Education (63%) and Health and Human Services (63%) — are slated to experience some of the largest workforce reductions.
VA Secretary Doug Collins wants to shed around 80,000 employees by the end of the fiscal year, while HHS has already laid off 10,000 workers. Trump is trying to outright abolish the Education Department, whose workforce has been roughly halved since he took office.
Additionally, agencies with majority female staff have been targeted for removals. Fifty-nine percent of the workforce at the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has been effectively eliminated, was made up of women, according to NWLC. Women also compose the majority of workers at the Social Security Administration (66%) and EPA (54%) — both agencies where staff cuts have occurred and more are planned.
A similar dynamic is playing out at departments that are majority people of color: Housing and Urban Development (56%), Education (54%), Treasury (54%) and HHS (52%).
HUD, which along with Education has the highest percentage of Black employees (36%), is expected to institute widespread layoffs. IRS — an agency under Treasury — has already wiped away its hiring gains during the Biden administration through separation incentives and is planning for broader reductions in force.
Likewise, the Interior Department — whose workforce is 10% indigenous, despite such individuals making up just 2% of overall federal employees — is anticipated to lay off thousands of its workers in less than 10 days.
The report said that pay gaps for women and people of color in federal jobs are mostly narrower than in the private sector. (e.g. Women at agencies were paid 95 cents for every dollar paid to men in September 2024, according to NWLC, compared with 83 cents for every dollar paid to men in all industries.)
It also argued that government jobs — which have historically been associated with job security, union membership and benefits — have helped people from underrepresented groups advance into the middle class.
“Women and people of color are likely to be disproportionately harmed by the Trump-Vance administration’s sweeping efforts to dismantle our government — pushed out of good jobs not due to their performance or agency needs, but due to the authoritarian agenda of a handful of billionaires,” NWLC argued.
The organization noted that it used federal workforce data from the Office of Personnel Management database called FedScope. The Trump administration has removed diversity data from the website, but NWLC had previously saved the information. OPM also has virtually eliminated the team that managed the database.