Overview:
The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies report, “State of the Dream 2026: From Regression to Signs of a Black Recession," details how President Donald Trump's policies, from DOGE to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is wreaking havoc on Black workers and setting Black households further behind.
When President Donald Trump took office for the second time last year, experts predicted tough times for Black America, pointing to the Project 2025 government blueprint calling for slashing government spending, and Trump’s own disdain for initiatives that increase Black employment in the U.S. workforce.
Now, on the first anniversary of Trump’s chaotic second term, a Washington think tank reports that the president’s policies have pushed the Black community into an economic downturn.
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According to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies report, Black unemployment has reached recession levels, with the rate for young Black people more than four times the national average. Under Trump, according to the report, the Black federal workforce has been decimated, an already flimsy safety net is shredded even further, and racial inequality is likely to get even worse.
Chaos: The New Reality
“One of Dr. [Martin Luther] King’s last books was ‘Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community,’” according to the report, titled “State of the Dream 2026: From Regression to Signs of a Black Recession.” Some 60 years after his murder, the report states, “chaos feels like the word that captures today’s reality.”
Dedrick Assante-Muhammad, president of the Joint Center, said he was surprised that Trump 2.0 would have such a dramatic impact on Black America in such a short period.
“I did not expect such an immediate negative impact to African Americans in one year,” Assante-Muhammad says. Compared to Trump’s first term, he said, the “radical policy shifts” the president enacted during his second term — including the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, an Elon Musk-run scheme that took a chainsaw to the federal workforce — resulted in Black individuals and households falling further behind their white peers.
“During the first year of Trump’s first term, Black unemployment declined by almost a percentage point,” Assante-Muhammad says. “In the first year of Trump’s second term, Black unemployment increased over a percentage point to 7.5%.”
Disturbing Economic Data
Prepared jointly with several nonprofit organizations, the report centers on the connection between the White House’s domestic policy agenda and the struggles of Black American households and workers.
Last January, when Trump took office, the Black unemployment rate was around 6%, according to the report, compared to the overall U.S. unemployment rate of 4%. By December 2025, the report states, the unemployment rate for Black workers had jumped by nearly a full percentage point to 7.5%. The unemployment data for Black youths was even more disturbing: by the end of last year, it had soared to around 18% — more than triple the national average.
“If Black people had the same prime-age employment rate in 2025 that they had in 2024, then there would have been about 260,000 more prime-age Black people working,” according to the report. “Of this number, about 200,000 would have been prime-age Black women.”
The Department of Government Efficiency, the Elon Musk-led initiative designed to reduce the federal workforce, likely played a role in the rising unemployment rate: “The elimination of 271,000 federal jobs has likely had a severe impact on Black workers, who are disproportionately represented in the federal workforce, as reflected in the sharp rise in Black unemployment in 2025,” according to the Joint Center report.
Organize and Strategize
The report also found that the tax policies included in Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act will further shred an already flimsy social safety net by shrinking federal revenue and shifting wealth upward to the nation’s highest earners.
At the same time, according to the report, Trump’s regulatory policies have left Black communities more vulnerable to predatory lending, his job creation policies likely will exacerbate racial inequality in the workplace, and his housing policies do nothing to narrow the homeownership gap between Black and white households.
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While the news is grim, “[r]egression is not destiny,” according to the report. “But neither is progress automatic,” and the path forward “requires more than optimism.”
Overcoming the setbacks will require “the organized power, evidence-based strategy, and moral clarity that have driven every successful movement for racial justice in American history,” according to the report. “The dream Dr. King articulated remains both measurable and achievable. Whether we reach it depends on the choices we make in response to what this report reveals.”