Job cuts at federal agencies in 2025 hit Black workers especially hard, contributing to record-high Black unemployment in the Washington, D.C., Virginia and Maryland metro area, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis.

Researchers found the Black unemployment rate nationwide reached 7.6% in the first three months of 2026. In the D.C.-area region, it was just under 10%.

Valerie Wilson, director of race, ethnicity and the economy for the institute and the study's author, said the numbers are moving in the wrong direction.

“Relative to recent historical lows, absolutely we are seeing it trending up and moving away from what had been some positive progress on bringing the rate down,” Wilson explained.

In 2025, administration officials President Donald Trump called the Department of Government Efficiency reduced the federal workforce by more than 300,000 jobs. Wilson pointed out the cuts disproportionately affected workers in the D.C., Virginia and Maryland region and had an especially high impact on Black adults, adding the increase in unemployment did not stem from a surge of new job seekers entering the labor force. Instead, it reflected fewer people working.

Wilson stressed the cuts have particularly affected Black women, who had made significant inroads in the federal workforce in recent years.

“Over that last year, there were massive federal job losses,” Wilson emphasized. “That in particular had a significant impact on Black women’s employment declining, and specifically among those who were college graduates.”

Wilson underscored the latest Black unemployment numbers represent a reversal of gains made in previous years.

“We had record low Black unemployment as recently as 2024 or 2023,” Wilson noted. “The rate was like 5.5%, somewhere in that range. The previous low was just before the pandemic in 2019.”

Federal Job Cuts Bring Increase in Virginia’s Black Unemployment Rate was first published by Public News Service and republished with permission.

Mark Richardson is a producer for PNS.