The
House recently passed a massive Trump budget
bill that will cut trillions in taxes for the
ultra-wealthy while eviscerating Medicaid, SNAP,
and other services for working Americans. It is
now
moving to
the Senate.
This
bill has been called a
massive transfer of wealth from the poor
to the rich.
It will also entrench racial economic
inequality, subsidizing dynastic wealth for the
majority white top 0.1 percent while defunding
the public-sector jobs and benefits that have
long sustained the Black middle class.
Among
other tax breaks for the wealthy and
corporations, this bill eliminates
the estate tax for
ultra-wealthy households. The federal estate tax
currently applies
only
to estates worth more than $13.99 million
per individual (or $27.98 million per
couple) in 2025.
That’s just
0.1
percent of estates.
Repealing the estate tax would cost the federal
government billions in lost revenue and benefit
only the very wealthiest households.
Racially,
the impact is stark :Black
families hold less than 5 percent of U.S.
wealth, despite making up over 13 percent
of households.
And the
median
white household has 10 times the wealth of
the median Black household.
Repealing the estate tax would be a massive
wealth transfer to the already wealthy,
doing nothing for
the 99.9 percent of Americans — especially Black
households — who are far less likely to
inherit
wealth.
To
offset the cost of these massive tax breaks for
the wealthy, the bill slashes all kinds of
programs that working Americans rely on. One
particularly cruel cut is to
reduce benefits for federal employees and
gut civil service protections.
These changes threaten one of the most secure
avenues for Black economic progress — government
employment — for “savings” of just
over $5 billion a year in
a bill that
will cost trillions.
Today,
Black employees make up
18.7
percent of the federal workforce.
This is no accident — it reflects decades of
civil rights gains, anti-discrimination laws,
and the promise of fair hiring. Federal jobs
have long provided
higher
wages, stronger benefits, and greater job
security for
Black workers than much of the private sector.
Nowhere
is this more evident than in the
D.C.-Maryland-Virginia (DMV) region — the
epicenter of the federal workforce. Across the
DMV region, more than 450,000 federal workers
are employed. Black workers account for over
a quarter of federal workers in D.C.,
Maryland, and Virginia alike.
This
corridor has long been a cornerstone of Black
middle-class advancement. It’s where federal
jobs have helped Black families build
generational wealth, send children to college,
and retire with dignity.
In
the South as well, where Black workers face
the
nation’s largest racial wage gaps and
persistent barriers to private sector
advancement, federal employment has provided a
crucial counterbalance. Well over
a third of federal workers in Mississippi,
Alabama, South Carolina, and Louisiana are
Black — along with nearly 44 percent in
Georgia.
These
figures reflect more than representation — they
underscore federal employment as a stabilizing
economic force in Black communities.
Federal
retirement benefits — including pensions and
annuities — are a rare form of guaranteed income
in retirement. For Black workers who still face
the racial wealth divide as a barrier to
economic security, these benefits are
foundational.
Nearly
half of Black families have zero
retirement savings,
making federal pensions critical to avoiding
poverty.
Together,
these policies amount to a reverse wealth
transfer: enriching wealthy heirs while
undermining public servants. Instead of gutting
benefits and eliminating the estate tax, we
should invest in the systems that have
historically offered a path forward for Black
workers — and workers of all colors — and
develop policies that would expand these
wealth-building programs beyond government
employment.
This
isn’t just a policy question. It’s a
question of national values.
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