Over the course of the last decade, the great social debate has mostly revolved around the issue of "merit vs equity", or equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome. For anyone with common sense it's clear that "equity" is a non-starter; a system which skews accomplishment and hands success to unqualified people based solely on their ethnicity, gender or sexual identity. The experiment has been disastrous for western civilization so far.
Women in general and black women in particular were initially sought out by companies to fill DEI quotas that should not have existed in the first place. These quotas were instituted because governments and NGO's created the demand for them by offering numerous subsidies, tax breaks and special credit access. Corporations that met the DEI requirements would then have a financial edge on the competition, so everyone had to participate to avoid being surpassed by the other guy.
One interesting side effect has been the encouragement of cultural delusion among certain demographics. The idea that minorities are somehow being "held back" by "white supremacy" and that they are at the same time far more accomplished than their oppressors is self perpetuating. One of the most common arguments heard in defense of the woke era was that "black women are the most educated and successful group" in America today.
This claim, of course, relied heavily on DEI in college admissions and DEI in corporate hiring. Black women were by far the biggest beneficiaries of DEI practices. Furthermore, the explosion in women's wages and minority wages was thanks to a unique but brief employment market built on easy venture capital. This created an explosion in tech jobs, marketing jobs, HR and diversity positions, not to mention an avalanche of web media jobs promoting progressive ideologies.
On top of all this, government hiring accelerated dramatically under the Biden Administration, and a lot of these jobs went to women and minorities in order promote equity quotas.
This all changed in 2025 with the virtual death of DEI, triggered by the Trump Administration crackdown through DOGE cuts and the advancement of civil suits against companies engaged in anti-white hiring practices. Almost immediately black women were most affected by the change.
Over 300,000 black women faced layoffs last year, with the trend continuing into 2026 and some estimates at around 500,000 total job losses. Currently, the unemployment rate for black women is 7.1%, far above the national average of 4.4%. Black female employees represented 12% of all federal employees in 2024 (double their share of the population in the national labor force), but they were also 33% of federal layoffs in 2025-2026.
The first response of progressives is to cry "racism" over these numbers, but they're not asking the question that really needs to be asked: Did these women truly qualify for the jobs they were hired for? Or, were they hired to make a political virtue statement and to collect subsidies? If they were highly competent and well trained, then one would think companies and government agencies would keep them regardless of extra cash or tax breaks.
Their value as workers should be enough. Another potential cause of these layoffs beyond the end of DEI is the prospect that black liberal women are notoriously difficult to work with. Companies tolerated them because there were financial benefits to having them on staff, but now those benefits are drying up.
The exodus of black women from the workforce has become a conundrum for the political left and the cope is flowing. The media is running stories regularly on the "return of black women" through burgeoning communities and online support groups. The discussion is often centered on the way in which black women can "regain their seat at the table". The problem is, the dynamic that gave them so much access in the woke years no longer exists and it's probably never coming back.
Beyond the collapse of DEI programs there is the looming specter of AI. Artificial Intelligence was initially heralded as an Apocalypse for low wage workers in entry level positions. However, the real demographic under threat is women in corporate environments.
Of the 6.1 million workers whose jobs are the most likely to be disrupted by AI and least likely to adapt, 86% are women, a recent Brookings analysis has found. Labor markets most populated by women in air conditioned offices across the nation - secretaries, receptionists, payroll clerks, customer service representatives, middle management, marketing, online journalism, education, even HR and communications - are all under threat from AI.
As easily as black women were elevated to six-figure incomes and the upper-middle class lifestyle, they are now on the verge of losing it all. The sad thing is, DEI built an environment in which every minority in a high level position became suspect. While there are certainly minority employees who are highly skilled and deserve the jobs they have, the decade of DEI has put them in a state of constant suspicion. Today, no one knows who was hired based on merit, and who was hired because of their skin color.