During Women’s History Month, we celebrate the many achievements and contributions of women, and reflect on their continued struggle for equity, including in the workplace.
The Trump administration’s policies have targeted discrimination protections, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), labor rights, and workplace safety protections. Those policies have also benefited billionaires and corporate leaders while working people struggle to afford basic needs, such as groceries.
These policies have been especially harmful for working women, 40% of whom are the sole source of income in their households. Even in 2025, women still earn 83 cents for every dollar men earn for similar jobs. The wage gap is even greater for Black, Latina and Indigenous women.
Here are some of the moves the Trump administration has taken that negatively impact working women:
- Issued executive orders to end collective bargaining rights.
- Slashed thousands of federal jobs, including those held by career civil servants.
- Took actions to politicize the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which has aligned with claims of “reverse discrimination.” The agency has historically been key to protecting workers against gender, race, religious and age discrimination.
- Ended federal diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility offices, positions, and programs.
- Repealed an executive order that banned federal contractors from discrimination.
- Ended programs that enforced workplace discrimination.
- Waged attacks against the LGBTQ+ community, particularly transgender and nonbinary workers.
- Targeted certification requirements in many professional fields dominated by women, including education and social work.
- Announced a funding freeze to childcare workers in New York, which is currently being challenged in court.
- Moved to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, placing many programs that assist children and families in jeopardy.
- Through the “Big Beautiful Bill,” slashed Medicaid funding for women’s and gender-affirming health care.
The union difference
While the Trump administration is slashing programs and services that help working women, it’s a different story in New York.
Gov. Kathy Hochul has invested in the state’s workforce, including programs that expanded parental leave, boosted affordable child care, reformed civil service, improved public pensions, increased aid to education and increased funding for affordable health care. The governor also strongly supports working women, often discussing her own experience as a working mother.
Many of the federal attacks on working women have been halted at the state level, and the Hochul administration is standing with CSEA in fighting back.