Black People Worse Off in Trump’s Economy Than Every Other Group, Per the Fed

Black people in America did worse economically in 2025 than at any time since the Federal Reserve began its financial wellbeing survey in 2013, according to some measures published Wednesday.

More notable than the depressed financial situation of Black respondents is the gap between Black people and, in some cases, every other racial and ethnic group recorded. The Federal Reserve’s report, Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2025, is the latest data set revealing the ways and extent Black Americans suffered tangible economic harm under the first year of President Donald Trump’s second presidential term, wherein the president took myriad steps to hack away at racial progress at the federal level as soon as returning to office. And as the U.S. residents are generally experiencing actual wage declines, the sharp jump in inflation fueled by the war in Iran, and a sluggish job market which saw the unemployment rate climb before flattening more recently, Wednesday’s Fed report exposes how some groups are bearing the brunt of Trump’s economic policy choices, while others are thriving.

The Fed’s economic well-being findings draw on a survey of nearly 13,000 U.S. adults taken in the fourth quarter of 2025. It asks questions about job loss and employment situation, emergency savings, and concerns about price increases, as well as more general survey questions about one’s perceived financial stability. Black people recorded the largest decline in financial stability measures in nearly every category compared to Asian, Hispanic and white respondents.

Black adults were the only racial group who reported a notable jump in concerns about price increases, the Fed wrote in its report, up 6% year over year.

The percentage of Black people “doing okay” or “living comfortably” declined by 5% from 65% in 2024 to 60% in 2025, the largest drop recorded since the Fed began collecting this data, including in 2020 during the COVID-era recession. The percentage of Hispanic respondents “doing okay” or “living comfortably” declined 1% from 63% to 62%, while Asian people’s situations stayed flat with 82% feeling comfortable. White people reported an increase in financial comfort, up from 77% in 2024 to 79% in 2025.

While a larger share of Hispanic people reported doing worse off year over year, Black people netted the largest jump in this category, up 7% to 28% of respondents. White people were the only racial group who felt their economic situations’ improved, with 26% reporting doing worse off year over year, down from 30% in 2024.

Black people saw the biggest drop in the share of respondents with three months worth of savings, and a smaller share than last year have even $400 to cover an emergency. A declining number of Hispanic respondents could foot an emergency $400 bill, but white and Asian people, who are more likely to have this cash on hand, improved in this category, both by 2%. 

The Fed’s figures further outline what months of federal and independent economic data has shown: Trump’s economy is bad for Black people. Because Black people usually bear the brunt of economic downturns first, the data could also signal something ominous for everyone else, including people who may feel they’re well-off under this regime.

“I think it’s going to be just a matter of time,” Gbenga Ajilore, chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told TPM in September after a jobs report showed Black unemployment spiking. 

“It’s going to hit everybody at some point. It just hits Black people earlier.”

Black unemployment earlier this year reached rates not seen (outside of the COVID-era recession shock in 2020 and 2021) since 2016, during the first Trump administration, when Black unemployment was equalizing from the global financial crisis, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report. Unemployment for white, Asian and Hispanic workers remained comparatively flat, though employment information for Hispanic people is likely skewed because of the disproportionate impact of the administration’s mass immigrant removal campaign.

Trump’s gutting of more than 300,000 federal jobs likely had a disproportionate impact on Black people, who were overrepresented in the federal workforce. Trump’s dismantling of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives included the abolition of federal programs and decrees pressuring private business to follow suit. An analysis from the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance found more than half of the companies listed on the S&P 100 made material changes to their DEI policies to avoid legal risk. Fewer companies reported workforce demographics at all, the study found. Taken together, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies declared in January Black people were facing a recession. This was even before a series of unimaginable Supreme Court decisions and subsequent state actions that have laid the foundation for the decimation of Black political power across the south and nationally.