Trump’s comments on recession and stock market drop trigger economic worry for Black communities

A recession with a combination of deep spending cuts to federal programs and an expansion of Trump’s tax cuts threatens post-pandemic progress to rebuild Black wealth, experts warn.
After President Donald Trump refused to rule out a recession and the U.S. stock market saw its steepest decline this year to date, there are growing concerns about the health of the economy and the disproportionate impact an economic downturn would have on Black households.
Despite promising to usher America into its “golden age” and that there would be an economic “boom like no other,” Trump appeared to temper expectations as rising costs continue to give American consumers whiplash, and his administration engages in tariff wars with allies and adversaries alike.
“I hate to predict things like that,” Trump told Fox News on Sunday when asked if he expected a recession this year. The “Art of the Deal” author added, “…there are always periods of, it takes a little time. It takes a little time, but I think it should be great for us.”
The apparent lack of confidence in short-term economic relief for Americans with promises of longer-term gain, also comes as the U.S. stock market tumbled significantly and lost all of the gains seen since Trump was elected in November 2024. Investors are reportedly “sick and tired” of Trump’s back-and-forth trade policies in the form of tariffs. If the U.S. is indeed heading toward a recession, Black Americans will likely feel the brunt of it.
“For Black communities, every recession deepens the cycle of deprivation, where jobs disappear, safety nets shrink, and the weight of survival grows heavier,” said Alphonso David, president and CEO of the Global Black Economic Forum. He told theGrio, “When resources are cut, opportunities fade, and our well-being is sacrificed.“
According to the Centre for Economic Policy Research, during the Great Recession in 2008, the mean wealth of Black households declined by 33%.
Valerie Rawlston Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy (PREE), notes that during a recession, the racial disparities are “amplified.” Wilson told theGrio, “The Black unemployment rate typically rises higher than any other group and takes longer to return to the pre-recession rate.”
Wilson, who is an economist explained, “A recession would not only undo the historically low rates of unemployment experienced by Black workers over the last two years; it would also undo recent progress toward reversing the 40-year trend of a growing racial wage gap.”
On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt sought to dismiss worries of a recession, calling the stock market drop a “snapshot of a moment in time.” Instead, she argued the Trump administration is in a “period of economic transition” from an economic “mess” created by former President Joe Biden.
“Joe Biden left this country in an economic disaster,” said Leavitt, who cited data points during the Biden administration, like the delinquency rate on credit card loans increasing by 63% and spending and “real wages” declining by one and a half percent as a result of Biden’s “record spending and economic policies.”
However, Wilson points out that the Biden administration’s federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic recession was “essential to the robust, widely shared economic recovery “that led to labor market gains for Black workers.” Wilson also says the Trump administration’s “insistence on needlessly cutting the federal workforce,” (which she notes is historically a pathway to greater economic opportunity and security for Black Americans), and implementing an expansion of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts will be “at the expense of working people” and “would be the worst possible path to take in an economic crisis.”
Wilson also asserts Trump’s tax cuts will instead benefit the wealthy — something Democrats continue to sound the alarm about as Republicans work to push through a spending bill to avoid a government shutdown and lay the groundwork for Trump’s major economic agenda, which includes $4.5 trillion in tax cuts. But in order to pay for such a costly endeavor, the federal government will have to make major spending cuts.
“I keep telling people that this is all about greed. This is all about money,” said U.S. Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett, a Democrat who sits on the House Budget and Ways and Means Committees. Plaskett tells theGrio that Black and brown communities will see cuts to things like Medicaid and potential disruptions to Social Security services as a result of the slashes to spending being called for by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress.
The U.S. Virgin Islands delegate and native New Yorker compared the plans to expand tax cuts and slash spending for critical federal programs to tactics of a street “hustler.” She explained, “They make you think that you’re going to win and that you can play their game, but they have the game rigged against you…they’re going to let you win the first hand to draw you in so that you play more, and then they’re going to take it all away from you.” She added, “What he’s not telling you is that the rest of the system is going to be rigged against you.”
Plaskett said a recession with a combination of deep spending cuts to federal programs and an expansion of Trump’s tax cuts would result in Black homes being “worth less,” cuts to school lunch for students, and even a decline in federal assistance for student loan borrowers.
For Black Americans thinking they will benefit from President Trump’s tax cuts, the congresswoman cautioned: “Most of that is going to corporations and to the wealthiest Americans, less than the 1%, so he’s going to give you a little bit, but then take away everything else from out underneath you.”
As for the state of the economy since taking office, Plaskett said despite Trump inheriting a “robust market” with “rising employment” from President Biden, the latest struggles should be credited to him. She added, “And he doesn’t seem to be concerned about it whatsoever. He just tells people to, you know, just tighten your belt.”
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