[[link removed]]

‘THIS ISN’T JUST ABOUT POLICY, IT’S ABOUT WHAT KIND OF NATION
WE WANT TO BE’: COUNTERSPIN INTERVIEW WITH LATOYA PARKER ON TRUMP
BUDGET’S RACIAL IMPACT  
[[link removed]]


 

Janine Jackson
June 27, 2025
FAIR - Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ The Budget is a moral document that reveals our nation’s
priorities. What stands out is a reverse wealth transfer. The
ultra-wealthy get billions in tax breaks, while Black families lose
the programs that have provided pathways to the middle-class. _

,

 

JANINE JACKSON: “Most Americans Can’t Afford Life Anymore”
[[link removed]] is
the matter-of-fact headline over a story on DOW JONES MARKETWATCH.
You might think that’s a “stop the presses” story, but
apparently, for corporate news, it’s just one item among others
these days.

The lived reality is, of course, not just a nightmare, but a crime,
perpetrated by the most powerful and wealthy on the rest of us. As we
marshal a response, it’s important to see the ways that we are
not _all_ suffering in the same ways, that anti-Black racism in this
country’s decision-making is not a bug, but a feature, and not
reducible to anything else. What’s more, efforts to reduce or
dissolve racial inequities, to set them aside just for the moment,
really just wind up erasing them.

So how do we shape a resistance to this massive transfer of wealth,
while acknowledging that it takes intentionality for all of us to
truly benefit?

LaToya Parker is a senior researcher at the Joint Center for
Political and Economic Studies [[link removed]], and
co-author, with Joint Center president Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, of
the recent piece
[[link removed]] “This
Federal Budget Will Be a Disaster for Black Workers.” She joins us
now by phone from Virginia. Welcome to COUNTERSPIN, LaToya Parker.

LATOYA PARKER: Thank you so much for having me.

JJ: I just heard Tavis Smiley, with the relevant reference to Martin
Luther King, saying
[[link removed]]:
“Budgets are moral documents.” Budgets can harm or heal
materially, and they also send a message about priorities: what
matters, who matters. When you and Dedrick Asante-Muhammad looked at
the Trump budget bill
[[link removed]] that
the House passed, you wrote that, “racially, the impact is
stark”—for Black people and for Black workers in particular. I
know that it’s more than one thing, but tell us what you are looking
to lift up for people that they might not see.

[OtherWords: This Federal Budget Will Be a Disaster for Black Workers]

OTHERWORDS (5/28/25)

LP: Sure. Thank you so much for raising that. This bill is more than
numbers. It’s a moral document, like you mentioned, that reveals our
nation’s priorities. What stands out is a reverse wealth transfer.
The ultra-wealthy get billions in tax breaks, while Black families
lose the very programs that have historically provided pathways to the
middle class.

JJ: You just said “historic pathways.” You can’t do economics
without history. So wealth, home ownership—just static reporting
doesn’t explain, really, that you can’t start people in a hole and
then say, “Well, now the Earth is flat. So what’s wrong with
you?” What are some of those programs that you’re talking about
that would be impacted?

LP: For instance, nearly one-third of Black Americans rely
on Medicaid
[[link removed].].
These cuts will limit access to vital care, including maternal health,
elder care and mental health services.

Nearly 25% of Black households depend on SNAP
[[link removed]],
compared to under 8% of white households. SNAP cuts will hit Black
families hardest, worsening food insecurities.

But in terms of federal workforce attacks, Black Americans are
overrepresented in the public sector, 18.7% of the federal workforce
[[link removed](34.6%25).],
and over a third in the South. So massive agency cuts threaten
thousands of stable, middle-class jobs, undermining one of the most
successful civil rights victories
[[link removed]] in
American history.

[Joint Center's LaToya Parker]

_LaToya Parker: “The ultra-wealthy get billions in tax breaks, while
Black families lose the very programs that have historically provided
pathways to the middle class.”_

So if I was to focus on the reverse wealth transfer, as we clearly
lift up in the article, the House-passed reconciliation bill is a
massive transfer of wealth from working families to the ultra-wealthy.
It eliminates the estate tax
[[link removed]], which
currently only applies to estates worth more than $13.99 million per
person, or nearly $28 million per couple. That’s just 1% of estates.
So 99.9% of families, especially Black families, will never benefit
from this.

Black families hold less than 5% of the US wealth
[[link removed].],
despite being over 13% of households. The median white household has
10 times the wealth of the median Black household. Repealing the
estate tax subsidizes dynastic wealth for the majority white top 1%,
and does nothing for the vast majority of Black families, who are far
less likely to inherit significant wealth.

JJ: I feel like that wealth disconnection, and I’ve spoken
with Dedrick Asante-Muhammad
[[link removed]] about
this in the past, there’s a misunderstanding or just an erasure of
history in the conversation about wealth, and _Why don’t Black
families have wealth? Why can’t they just give their kids enough
money to go to school?_ And it sounds like it’s about Black
families not valuing savings or something. But of course, we have a
history of white-supremacist discrimination in lending
[[link removed]] and
loaning and home ownership, and in all kinds of things that lead us to
this situation that we’re in today. And you can’t move forward
without recognizing that.

LP: Absolutely. Absolutely.

JJ: I remember reading a story years ago that said, “Here’s the
best workplaces for women.” And it was kind of like, “Well, if you
hate discrimination, these companies are good.” Reporting, I think,
can make it seem as though folks are just sitting around thinking,
“Well, what job should I get? Where should I get a job?” As though
we were just equally situated economic actors.

But that doesn’t look anything like life. We are not consumers of
employment. Media could do a different job of helping people
understand the way things work.

LP: Absolutely. And I think that’s why it’s so important that
you’re raising this issue. In fact, we bring it up in our article,
in terms of cuts to the federal workforce and benefits. So, for
instance, to pay for these tax breaks to the wealthy, the bill slashes
benefits for federal employees, and it guts civil service protections,
saving just $5 billion a year in the bill that costs trillions, right?

So just thinking about that, Black employees make up, like I said
before, 18.7% of the federal workforce, thanks to decades of civil
rights progress and anti-discrimination law. Federal jobs have long
provided higher wages, stronger benefits and greater job security for
Black workers than much of the private sector.

And the DMV alone, the DC/Maryland/Virginia region, more than 450,000
federal workers are employed, with Black workers
[[link removed]] making
up over a quarter in DC/Maryland/Virginia. In the South, well over a
third of the federal workers in states like Mississippi, Alabama,
South Carolina and Louisiana are Black. In Georgia, it’s nearly 44%.
So federal employment has been a cornerstone for Black middle-class
advancement, helping families build generational wealth, send children
to college and retire with dignity.

JJ: And so when we hear calls about, “Let’s thin out the federal
government, because these are all bureaucrats who are making more
money than they should,” it lands different when you understand that
so many Black people found advancement, found opportunity through the
federal government when they were being denied it at every other
point. And it only came from explicit policies, anti-discriminatory
policies, that opened up federal employment, that’s been so
meaningful.

LP: Exactly. Exactly. Federal retirement benefits like the pensions
and annuities are a rare source of guaranteed income. Nearly half of
Black families have zero retirement savings
[[link removed]],
making these benefits critical to avoiding poverty in retirement. So
these policies amount to a reverse wealth transfer, enriching wealthy
heirs while undermining the public servants and systems that have
historically offered a path forward for Black workers. Instead of
gutting the benefits and eliminating the estate tax, we should invest
in systems that have provided pathways to the middle class for Black
workers, and expand these opportunities beyond government employment.
Ultimately, this isn’t just about policy, it’s about what kind of
nation we want to be, right? So that’s what it’s all about.

JJ: And I’ll just add to that with a final note. Of course, I’m a
media critic, but I think lots of folks could understand why I reacted
to this line from this MARKETWATCH piece
[[link removed]] that
said, “Years of elevated prices have strained all but the wealthiest
consumers, and low- and middle-income Americans say something needs to
change.” Well, for me, I’m hearing that, and I’m like, “So
it’s only low- and middle-income people, it’s only the people at
the sharp end, who want anything to change.”

And, first of all, we’re supposed to see that as a fair fight, the
vast majority of people against the wealthiest. But also, it makes it
seem like such a zero-sum game, as though there isn’t any shared
idea among a lot of people who want racial and economic equity in this
country. It sells it to people as like, “Oh, well, we could make
life livable for poor people or for Black people, but you, reader, are
going to have to give something up.” It’s such a small, mean
version of what I believe a lot of folks have in their hearts, in
terms of a vision going forward in this country. And that’s just my
gripe.

LP: I agree. These aren’t luxury programs. They’re lifelines
across the board for all Americans. The working poor—if you like to
call it that, some like to call it that—cutting them is just cruel,
right? It’s economically destructive, it’s irresponsible.
Fiscally, states would lose $1.1 trillion over 10 years, risking over
a million jobs in healthcare and food industries alone. So I agree
100%.

JJ: All right, we’ll end on that note for now. We’ve been
speaking with LaToya Parker, senior researcher at the Joint Center.
They’re online at JointCenter.org [[link removed]], and
you can find her piece, with Joint Center president Dedrick
Asante-Muhammad, on the impact of the federal budget on Black workers
at OTHERWORDS.ORG [[link removed]]. Thank you so much, LaToya
Parker, for joining us this week on COUNTERSPIN.

LP: Thank you again for having me.

_LaToya Parker is a senior researcher at the Joint Center for
Political and Economic Studies [[link removed]], and
co-author, with Joint Center president Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, of
the recent piece
[[link removed]] “This
Federal Budget Will Be a Disaster for Black Workers.”_

_Janine Jackson is FAIR’s program director and and producer/host of
FAIR’s syndicated weekly radio show COUNTERSPIN
[[link removed]]. She contributes frequently to
FAIR’s newsletter EXTRA! [[link removed]] and
co-edited The FAIR Reader: An EXTRA! Review of Press and Politics
in the ’90s (WESTVIEW PRESS). She has appeared
on ABC‘s NIGHTLINE and CNN HEADLINE NEWS, among other outlets,
and has testified to the Senate Communications Subcommittee on budget
reauthorization for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Her
articles have appeared in various publications, including IN THESE
TIMES and the UAW’s SOLIDARITY, and in books including Civil
Rights Since 1787 (NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS) and Stop the Next War
Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism (NEW WORLD
LIBRARY). Jackson is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and has an
M.A. in sociology from the New School for Social Research._

_FAIR, the national media watch group, has been offering
well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. We
work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater
diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that
marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints. As an
anti-censorship organization, we expose neglected news stories and
defend working journalists when they are muzzled. As a progressive
group, FAIR believes that structural reform is ultimately needed to
break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent
public broadcasting and promote strong non-profit sources of
information._

* Federal Budget
[[link removed]]
* racial wealth gap
[[link removed]]
* Tax policy
[[link removed]]
* Billionaires
[[link removed]]
* social needs
[[link removed]]
* federal workers
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]