Women Are Getting Slammed in Trump’s Economy

President Donald Trump has made no secret of his hostility to women, whether it’s his appalling tolerance of sexual predators, his misogynistic attacks on the women who’ve dared to challenge him, or the multiple allegations of misconduct leveled against Trump himself.

It’s the Trump economy, however, that’s had the most widespread negative impact on women in America.

As we close out Women’s History Month this March, consider these recent findings on the state of women’s financial security, one year into Trump’s second term:

Women are dropping out of the workforce.

More than 455,000 women left the workforce in the first eight months of 2025, according to the nonprofit Catalyst, with caregiving obligations and child care costs a deciding factor for many. Forty-two percent of women who voluntarily left their jobs cited caregiving as the reason for their departure, according to Catalyst’s survey, and nearly four in ten said their jobs don’t offer sufficient flexibility. Moreover, a majority of moms say child care is “barely or not at all affordable,” according to Motherly’s 2025 State of Motherhood report, and the number of working moms with young kids is at a three-year low. Meanwhile, Trump has frozen nearly $10 billion in child care and family assistance support over concerns of “fraud,” which will only make women’s child care challenges worse.

Women, especially Black women, are bearing the brunt of job losses.

Though cracks have only begun to show in the labor market generally, the bottom has already fallen out for many women. Among Black women, the unemployment rate has skyrocketed over the past year, from 5.5 percent in February 2025 to 7.1 percent in February 2026. What’s worse, college-educated Black women suffered the sharpest declines in employment, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), likely the result of Trump’s massive layoffs in the federal government early last year. The National Women’s Law Center reports that women and people of color made up the majority of workers targeted by Trump’s cuts to the federal workforce.

The gender wage gap is growing.

After reaching an historic low in 2024, the gender pay gap is rising again, according to new data from EPI. Overall, women earned 18.6 percent less than men in 2025, with the greatest disparities between men and women with college and advanced degrees. (Btw, Equal Pay Day was March 26.)

Adding insult to injury, the Trump administration has made it much harder for women to pursue claims of gender discrimination and unequal pay. Trump’s executive orders attacking “DEI” effectively gutted the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and then reversed its historic mission so it’s now protecting white men. The agency’s website now includes a page on “DEI-related discrimination,” and EEOC chair Andrea Lucas has posted videos encouraging white men to pursue discrimination claims.

Economic anxiety is rising, especially for women over 50.

Affordability is a growing worry, especially for older women with less of a financial runway. More than half of women over 50 report that they feel “less financially secure than they did a year ago,” according to a recent survey by the AARP, and just 11 percent say they’re “very confident” about having enough money for retirement. Health care is an especially big concern, with only 45 percent saying they can afford care. Among women ages 50 to 64 (people not yet eligible for Medicare), 38 percent report skipping care, and more than one in five have gone into debt to pay for care. Younger women, however, may be facing the most significant financial struggles. A 2025 survey by the Century Foundation found that 42 percent of young women ages 18 to 34 were “taking on debt to pay the basics” compared to 15 percent of women over 65 and 33 percent of young men.

How are women doing in 2026? They’re certainly not living the stuff of MAGA’s pro-natalist fantasies, lounging in pastel nap dresses while contentedly caring for their men. Trump’s economy has been as brutal to women as Trump himself.

New at the Monthly…

Just say no. If your teenager crashes the family car, do you buy him a Lamborghini? Of course not. But that’s exactly what Trump is asking for with his $200 billion request to fund his war in Iran. Pundits like David Frum argue that the best way for Congress to control this misadventure is to accede to Trump’s request, but Editor Nate Weisberg disagrees. “No amount of leverage for Congressional Democrats could make this administration competent enough to succeed,” Nate writes. Rather, Congress’s best leverage over Trump is to just say no. Read here.

Don’t be fooled by Joe Kent. Many liberals are hailing Joe Kent, who recently resigned as director of the National Counterterrorism Center, over his opposition to the war in Iran. But Politics Editor Bill Scher argues Kent is no hero. Kent’s resignation letter essentially accused Israel of duping Trump into launching the war—a claim that Bill condemns as anti-semitic. “The rest of us need not extol his letter as a noble protest or echo his libel that the Israeli tail is wagging the Trump dog,” Bill argues. Read here.

Gavin Newsom’s housing problem. Homelessness has long been among California’s most persistent and intractable challenges—and it appears to have defeated Gov. Gavin Newsom. Associate Editor Gillen Tener Martin chronicles what went wrong with Newsom’s efforts to reduce homelessness, what he could have done, and why this failure could haunt him in 2028 as he contemplates a presidential run. “Homelessness is among Newsom’s biggest political weaknesses,” Gillen writes. Read here.

Bad judgment. Earlier this week, Trump called on Congress to pass a “crime bill” punishing “rogue judges”—part of his escalating attack on the independence of the judiciary. The Kentucky legislature has already done him one better: It’s pursuing the partisan impeachment of a judge, which constitutional scholar Josh Douglas calls a “direct threat to the rule of law.” “Democracy suffers when legislatures use impeachment not to oust judges who are corrupt or derelict but whose opinions they dislike,” he writes. It’s a deeply troubling sign of how the bulwarks of democracy are falling. Read here.

Some surprising truths about fighting crime. Advocates of criminal justice reform have long pushed the idea that helping former inmates find jobs might prevent their return to prison. Unfortunately, this approach doesn’t work. That’s one of the many uncomfortable truths in Jennifer Doleac’s new book, The Science of Second Chances, reviewed by longtime Monthly contributor and Stanford University professor Keith Humphreys. Keith lauds Doleac for her “rigorous methods, humility about what is known, and disregard for ideological comfort food,” even at the risk of upsetting conventional wisdom. Another interesting tidbit Keith uncovers: It’s not the severity of the punishment that discourages recidivism but the certainty of consequences that has an impact. Read here.

Plus…

Russell Lemle of the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute argues that the federal government’s suicide prevention program for veterans needs a sharper focus on what works. Georgetown University’s Edwin Park dismantles the Trump administration’s vaporware health care plan in this week’s podcast. (Preview available here.) Brennan Center Senior Research Fellow Maya Kornberg urges Congress to reclaim its constitutional authority. Contributing writer Mike Lofgren speaks with David Masciotra on the case for abolishing ICE. Bill Scher points out that Democrats might be needlessly wringing their hands on “favorability” when they’re crushing it at the polls so far.

Coda (middle-class anxiety edition)…

JOLTS in the labor market. One of the bleakest articles I’ve seen in recent weeks is a Wall Street Journal piece on the rise of “reverse recruiters”—people getting paid by job hunters to find them a position. One agency reportedly charges clients as much as $1,500 in fees, while others ask for a share of workers’ salaries after placement. This phenomenon is a sign of rising desperation among white-collar workers in an increasingly precarious job market. The outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas (a traditional headhunting outfit) reported that companies’ hiring plans for February were down by 63 percent compared to last year and that hiring in January was the lowest on record. The federal government’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary (JOLTS) also reports a frozen labor market, with the rate of openings, hiring, and quits essentially unchanged since last year. In more prosperous times, rising quit rates mean people are heading to greener pastures. Now, it seems, workers are reluctant to leave.

No Rx on drug prices. New polling from KFF shows Americans seem unconvinced by TrumpRx, Trump’s much bally-hooed website to bring down drug prices. Only 41 percent of Americans say the administration’s policies are likely to make drugs more affordable, and only about 7 percent of Americans have bothered to visit TrumpRx. Meanwhile, 59 percent say they’re worried about affording their prescriptions, the highest percentage since KFF started asking this question in 2018. The skepticism over TrumpRx is unsurprising. It’s basically a government version of the commercial discount site GoodRx, but with many fewer options and potentially worse deals. Weight-loss drug Wegovy, for example, was $199 on TrumpRx when I checked earlier this week, compared to $149 at GoodRx. And whatever Trump might say about having won “most favored nation” pricing, Wegovy’s also cheaper in Japan ($163, according to NYT).

Blood money. Plasma centers are typically more common in distressed neighborhoods, perhaps in a strip mall next to a pawnshop and a check casher. But as The New York Times reports, they’ve become increasingly common in middle-class and even wealthy neighborhoods. And their clientele is decidedly middle-class as well. At one center in Dallas, the Times found, the people selling plasma for about $70 a pop included “a 30-something tech worker trying to save for a house, a sixth-grade special education teacher looking to cover rising health care costs, a night-shift nurse struggling to pay child care fees.” Meanwhile, Trump has raked in at least $4 billion from his presidency, according to the latest tally by The New Yorker.

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Anne Kim, Senior Editor

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