April 24, 2024
Nearly 8,000 Black-Middle-Class Jobs At Risk in the D.C. Area
“The president Day One will be a wrecking ball for the administrative state.”
–Russ Vought, a former senior Trump administration official and part of the Project 2025 Trump transition project1
“People will lose their jobs.”
–Kevin D. Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, the lead organization of the Project 2025 Trump transition project2
“RNC fires dozens of employees after Trump-backed leadership takes over.”
—Washington Post headline3
Trump-aligned conservatives are hoping to radically transform the federal government if Donald Trump is elected president. They would like to remake the federal government so that its primary purpose is to serve Trump and MAGA-extremist conservative ideals, not the majority of the American people. Among their goals is to replace all the federal government department, agency, and office leadership with individuals whose primary loyalty is to Trump and not the U.S. Constitution. They would like as many as 50,000 individuals fired and replaced with MAGA (Make America Great Again) loyalists. If they were to succeed in this effort, the Black middle class in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area could suffer a net loss of almost 8,000 jobs. If they were to succeed in dramatically reducing the size of the federal government, as they hope, then the Black middle class could lose tens of thousands of jobs nationally. For many decades, employment in the federal government has been a path to the middle class for Black Americans. A new Trump administration would likely close this avenue.
The MAGA conservative movement has been planning on remaking the federal government from as early as 2020.4 In response to the 2020 plans, Ron Sanders, a lifelong Republican and a senior federal employee who served three Democratic and three Republican presidents, resigned in protest. Sanders stated, “I simply cannot be part of an administration that seeks . . . to replace apolitical expertise with political obeisance.”5
Donald Trump did not win the 2020 election, so the takeover plans were stalled. But right now, there is renewed energy and millions of dollars being spent to prepare to engage in a personnel and policy transition blitzkrieg if Trump were to win the 2024 election.6
To serve in a new Trump administration, individuals would likely have to show allegiance to Trump above the Constitution, laws, and facts. Trump has stated, “I value loyalty above everything else — more than brains, more than drive and more than energy.”7 Several former Trump aides refuse to endorse him for president because they say he puts himself before the country.8 His former defense secretary Mark T. Esper states, “[Trump] puts himself first, and I think anybody running for office should put the country first.”9 His former national security adviser John Bolton states, “Trump’s positions are made on the basis of what’s good for Donald Trump, not on some coherent theory of national security.”10 The journalist Timothy O’Brien concludes, “I think [Trump] defines [loyalty] as allegiance. And it’s not allegiance to the flag or allegiance to the country — it’s allegiance to Trump.”11
Vice President Mike Pence fulfilled his Constitutional duty to ratify the 2020 election, and, in doing so, sealed Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election. Trump called him a “wimp” and said his selection of Pence as vice president was “a big mistake.”12 Trump’s MAGA followers chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!”13 Today, Pence is seen as an enemy of the MAGA movement for following the Constitution.14
Trump continues to lie about his loss of the 2020 election.15 If a future Trump president doesn’t want to face people who acknowledge his loss in 2020, he will probably need to fire a substantial number of senior government officials. It is doubtful that any new appointees to a Trump administration could admit the fact that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.16
Some individuals working on a new Trump transition are clear that laws should be subordinate to fulfilling Trump’s wishes. Mark Paoletta, a former senior Trump administration lawyer, seems proud of the way former Trump officials “refused or slow-walked lawful directives because they disagreed with the former president’s policies.”17 In preparing for a new Trump administration, Trump’s senior advisor Stephen Miller is looking for general counsels who will be less likely than those of the first Trump administration to tell Trump when his plans are illegal. Miller is looking for general counsels who would instead work to find a way around the law.18
The Washington Post Fact Checker documented over 30,000 false or misleading statements Trump made during his time as president.19 This constant stream of errors and misinformation can run up against the work of federal government employees. For example, on September 1, 2019, Trump falsely stated in a tweet that Hurricane Dorian would reach Alabama.20 The National Weather Service (NWS) branch in Birmingham, Alabama quickly corrected this information.21 Rather than acknowledge his error, Trump altered a Weather Service map to make it look like the meteorologists believed that it was possible for the hurricane to reach Alabama.22 (Altering a weather forecast map, by the way, is probably a crime.)23 The White House then forced the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the parent agency of the Weather Service, to issue a statement supporting Trump’s false “forecast.”24 These events were demoralizing to the NOAA staff. In internal communication, NOAA’s acting Chief Scientist Craig McLean stated, “I find it unconscionable that an anonymous voice inside of NOAA would be found to castigate a dutiful, correct, and loyal NWS Forecaster who spoke the truth.”25 Since it appears that Donald Trump refuses to acknowledge his errors and factual misstatements, he will probably prefer to fill a new Trump administration with federal employees who are comfortable lying to support his statements.
Individuals with advanced degrees can earn more in the private sector than working for the federal government.26 These individuals, who will be among the senior staff of the federal government, work for the federal government, in part, because they wish to serve the American people, uphold the law, and because they believe in the importance of the mission of the agency for which they work. Individuals with these principles can be obstacles to the self-serving goals of Trump and the hyper-partisan goals of the MAGA movement. Thus, the MAGA movement will likely work hard to remove them.
The public sector has been an important path of opportunity and upward mobility for Black people.27 The United States Postal Service “provided the first jobs to many former slaves and promoted Black employees to prominent leadership positions long before other parts of the federal government — let alone the private sector — contemplated such equality.”28 While the federal government employed less than 1,000 Black people in 1900, by 1944, it employed more than a quarter of a million.29 Following the Civil Rights Movement, the public sector provided Black men with more opportunities for professional and managerial jobs than the private sector.30 Researchers consistently find smaller White-Black wage gaps in the public sector than in the private sector.31 This finding suggests that there is less racial discrimination in the public sector. The sociologists Eric Grodsky and Devah Pager observed that a Black individual’s qualifications are a better predictor of the person’s wages in the public sector than in the private sector, again suggesting less racial discrimination in the public sector.32
The opportunities that the federal public sector provides to Black people could end with a new Trump administration. By race and Hispanic ethnicity, the Black population has a relatively large low-income segment and relatively small middle- and upper-income segments.33 The loss of middle-class jobs in the federal government would be a significant blow to the Black population because it already has a small middle class, and because it is less likely to find similar opportunities to remain in the middle class in the private sector.
A complete record of Trump’s federal appointments by race is not readily available. Brookings has compiled a database of Senate-confirmed appointees for the first 300 days of the George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden administrations. These data only include confirmations to the 15 departments in the line of presidential succession. While these data are incomplete, they should nonetheless provide a useful comparison and an indication of the importance of racial diversity in the administrations.
Republican administrations have a worse track record on racial diversity than Democratic administrations.34 But, in comparison to fellow Republican George W. Bush’s administration, the Trump administration was particularly bad. Figure 1 shows that while 9 percent of Bush’s appointees for the first 300 days were Black, only 2 percent of Trump’s were. The Obama administration had a Black-appointee rate of 12 percent, but the Biden administration’s rate was substantially higher than Obama’s. Biden had an exceptional rate of 16 percent. Biden’s rate is eight times Trump’s.
Figure 1
Biden was also strong with other people-of-color groups. The Biden administration’s rate for Hispanics was 10 percent, tying Obama’s level. Biden also greatly exceeded all other three administrations for Asian Americans, with a rate of 10 percent for this group. Obama and Trump both had an Asian-American appointee rate of 4 percent. The Bush administration had a rate of 3 percent.
The data on judicial appointments compiled by the Pew Research Center covers the first 1,019 days of administrations. Again, we will compare the four most recent administrations. Figure 2 shows that the Trump administration has a poor record for Black judicial appointments even in comparison with fellow Republican George W. Bush. Eight percent of Bush’s judicial appointments were Black judges, but only 3 percent of Trump’s. Obama had a rate that was much stronger than Bush’s at 19 percent. But Obama’s strong Black judicial appointment rate is still far behind Biden’s. Biden had an outstanding rate of 30 percent. Biden’s rate of Black judicial appointments is ten times Trump’s.
Figure 2
Biden also leads the pack in Hispanic and Asian American judicial appointments. Trump does poorly with Hispanic judicial appointments and only does relatively well with Asian American judicial appointments.
It is important to note that the Biden administration has not only had a strong rate of Black political and judicial appointments but that Biden has also made several appointments of the very first Black person in a number of prominent positions. Biden selected the first Black woman vice president.35 He appointed the first Black woman to the Supreme Court.36 His other firsts include the first Black Secretary of Defense, the first Black chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, and the first Black head of the Environmental Protection Agency. This is not a complete list of the Biden “Black firsts.”37
In a normal transition, a new president can make about 4,000 political appointments, many of which do not require Senate confirmation.38 The groups working on a possible future Trump transition are combining a normal transition with the 2020 Trump plans to reclassify federal workers. This reclassification would make it possible for a new Trump administration to fire and replace 50,000 federal workers. The point of replacing 50,000 federal workers is to transform the federal government into a MAGA institution.
To join a new Trump administration, loyalty to Trump and the MAGA movement would be the primary qualification — skills and professional qualifications are secondary. John McEntee ran Trump’s Presidential Personnel Office in 2020. He has been described as a person “willing to do anything Trump wanted” and as setting the stage for the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol.39 In 2020, McEntee recruited die-hard Trump supporters, a number of whom “had barely graduated from college and had few, if any, of the credentials usually expected for such positions.”40 McEntee now runs an organization preparing to help staff a new Trump administration. Saurabh Sharma founded American Moment, an organization with ties to the former Trump administration and an endorser of the Project 2025 Trump transition project. Sharma discusses his hopes for a MAGA takeover by referencing President Ronald Reagan. He states, “Reagan hired young, he hired ideological, and he hired underqualified.”41
If a new Trump administration fires 50,000 from the more senior ranks of the federal government in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, then 8,700 current Black middle-class employees could lose their jobs. The new administration could conceivably add 1,000 Black Trump supporters among the replacements. Under this scenario, the Washington, D.C.-area Black middle class would have a net loss of 7,700 jobs. (See the Appendix for the basis of these estimates.)
If the MAGA movement takes hold of the federal government, the national job loss to the Black middle class would likely be significantly greater. The Project 2025 transition project has a goal of dramatically reducing the size of the federal government. The Project’s manual for a new Trump administration is the new edition of the Mandate for Leadership (MFL).42 This document was compiled by the Heritage Foundation but authored by many different individuals including 18 former Trump administration senior officials. The MFL has been endorsed by over 100 conservative organizations.43 The Heritage Foundation claims that more than 60 percent of its prior recommendations were supported by the 2017 Trump administration.44
The MFL has a call to reduce the size and scope of the federal government “back to something resembling the original constitutional intent.”45 Among the cuts recommended are the elimination of the Department of Education, the dismantling of a significant portion of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the closing of more than a dozen Offices (e.g., the Office of Domestic Climate Policy), and the ending of several programs (e.g., Head Start). This is not all of the trimming the MFL proposes.
The MAGA movement is an “anti-woke” movement where every discussion of racial inequality is accused of being “critical race theory.” With a perfect Orwellian-doublespeak sensibility, the movement defines all attempts at anti-racism as “racism.” The MFL calls for the elimination of federal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs46 on the grounds that they supposedly promote “unlawful discrimination” and “invidious schemes.”47 The chapter on the Treasury Department recommends that “the participation in any critical race theory or DEI initiative, without objecting on constitutional or moral grounds, as per se grounds for termination of employment.”48 The MFL calls for the closing of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs,49 which is the office that tracks whether firms contracting with the federal government are complying with affirmative action employment regulations. The “anti-woke” aspects of the MFL’s recommendations for reducing the size of the federal government may have a disparate impact on Black federal employees since Black workers may be more likely to be employed in these programs and offices.
If a new Trump administration were to follow the MFL’s call to shrink the federal government, it would have a negative impact on the Black middle class. A 5 percent reduction in the federal workforce would probably result in the loss of over 20,000 Black middle-class jobs nationally. (See the Appendix for the basis of this estimate.) This amount would be in addition to the 7,700 Black middle-class jobs lost with the firing and replacement of 50,000 D.C.-area senior staff. The former Trump official and conservative leader Russ Vought wants to hit the federal government with “a wrecking ball,”50 so one suspects that he and the rest of the coalition behind the MFL would like a federal labor force reduction greater than 5 percent.
Donald Trump has a long history of racist and insensitive remarks directed at a variety of minority groups including people with disabilities. Here are a few highlights of Trump’s anti-Black statements: Trump suggested that a group of young Black and Latino youth be sentenced to death for a crime which, it was later established, they did not commit. Although the man who did commit the crime confessed, and DNA evidence confirmed the innocence of the Black and Latino youth, Trump continues to insist that they are guilty.51 Trump was one of the most prominent individuals questioning the legitimacy of the country’s first Black president. Trump questioned whether Barack Obama was born in the United States. And then, he moved on to questioning whether Obama attended Harvard Law School.52 Trump referred to the majority Black and Latino countries in the Caribbean and Africa as “shithole countries,” and suggested that the United States should encourage more immigration from majority White countries like Norway.53 At the Black Conservative Federation awards gala, Trump said that Black people liked him more because of his criminal indictments and mug shot.54 Even in a room with Black members of Congress and other distinguished Black individuals,55 Trump apparently has a hard time conceiving of Black people as anything other than criminals.
Because of Trump’s racism, racists and White supremacists of various sorts are among his supporters. These supporters include the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis.56 The “Western chauvinist” or neo-fascist Proud Boys also are Trump supporters. Several Proud Boys were convicted for their involvement in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.57 More generally, the analysis of survey data indicates that anti-Black racial resentment animates a segment of Trump supporters.58
If a new Trump administration replaces many nonpartisan, professional, federal workers with MAGA-movement individuals, there will likely be more racists and White supremacists entering the federal workforce. This development, coupled with a prohibition on diversity and inclusion policies, could create an increasingly hostile environment for Black workers. White racists in a new Trump administration could pressure Black federal workers to leave the government. This would then open up slots, some of which might be filled with more White racists, possibly creating a vicious cycle pushing more and more Black workers out of the federal workforce.
The conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat argues that after the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, it is hard to imagine a new Trump administration composed of the typical Republican administration staffers. Instead, he argues we should expect “a reprise of the first term’s last two months, when the normal people slipped away and Trump was left alone to play the authoritarian with a set of enablers and kooks.”59 Except of course, as president of the United States, Trump would not be playing at being an authoritarian, but actually trying to be one. Douthat adds, “surely Trump himself would want a team of ruthless populist avengers, eager to push the system to the breaking point.”60 Project 2025 is ready to place thousands of enablers and populist avengers into a new Trump administration on day one, ready to break the nonpartisan federal government.
Since the mid-twentieth century, the federal government has been a place for Black Americans to find opportunity and middle-class jobs. Among the things a new Trump administration would likely break is this relationship between Black Americans and employment in the federal government. Many thousands of Black middle-class jobs would likely be lost. One of the paths for Black upward mobility would likely be closed.
Appendix
The federal government’s Office of Personnel Management reports that, in 2021, 18.2 percent of the total federal workforce was Black.61 Estimates for the Washington, D.C.-area impact of a new Trump administration are based on the 2018–2022 American Community Survey data prepared by IPUMS USA, University of Minnesota. In the American Community Survey data, 18.6 percent of individuals employed in the federal government are Black.
The share of more senior Black workers in the federal government is based on the federal government workers who work in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia, who are at least 45 years old, and who earn at least $130,000 in an annual wage. In 2022, the average annual wage for managers in the federal government was $134,090.62 Based on this definition, the estimated share of Black workers who are more senior employees in the federal government is 17.4 percent.
Assuming that 50,000 of the more senior federal employees in the Washington, D.C.-area are being replaced, then 17.4 percent of them would be 8,700. Two percent of Republican voters in 2020 were Black.63 Two percent of the 50,000 replacements is 1,000.
The national Black-middle-class impact of a 5 percent reduction in the federal workforce starts with the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Employment Statistics survey data. In 2023, these data indicated that the annual average federal employment count excluding the U.S. Postal Service was 2,321,000. Five percent of that amount is 116,000. The estimated Black share—18.2 percent—of 116,000 is 21,100.
