Donald Trump loves telling the country that we need more people in the trades instead of racking up college debt. Yet his administration is axing Job Corps — the very program that teaches the most vulnerable kids how to fix engines, wire houses, care for the sick, and build a life. Turns out the only trade Trump thinks poor kids should master is how to pack a trash bag, disappear, and die quietly.
So much for making America great again, eh?
The Trump administration has announced a nationwide pause of 100 contractor-operated Job Corps centers to begin June 30. This abrupt move will halt critical job training, education, and housing for more than 25,000 low-income youth ages 16 to 24. Citing a recent transparency report, the Department of Labor cites program inefficiencies and funding deficits as reasons for the suspension, but critics warn the decision will leave thousands of vulnerable young people without a pathway to employment, stability, or safety. More than 4,500 of those students were homeless before joining Job Corps.
For more than 60 years, Job Corps has been a lifeline for America’s forgotten youth, with more than 3 million young people passing through its doors since the program began in 1964. It has given kids from broken homes, poverty, and the foster care system a chance to finish high school, earn certifications, learn trades, and build a future. Whether it was training in welding, carpentry, electrical work, nursing, or information technology, Job Corps helped students get off the streets, out of shelters, and abusive environments, and into stable housing and employment.
Now, as the program is being gutted, social media is being flooded with heartbreaking testimonials from Job Corps alumni across the country. These are stories of lives turned around, of second chances that would have never come without Job Corps. Videos are surfacing from centers in Memphis, Detroit, San Jose, Shreveport, and elsewhere showing young people stuffing their belongings into trash bags, plastic bins, and roller suitcases, their futures packed away in a matter of hours. Staff at these centers are posting gut-wrenching photos, tearful announcements, final hugs, the faces of students who have nowhere to go. Some of these kids don’t have families to return to. For many, Job Corps was home.
But clear, this isn’t just a budget decision. It’s a culling. The Job Corps pause is part of a larger strategy to erase poor, working-class youth from the fabric of America’s future. By cutting these services, Trump and his co-conspirators are sending a clear message to tens of thousands of young people: You don’t matter. You’re disposable. You can struggle or die quietly while we call it “fiscal responsibility.”
The Department of Labor says this is all about “efficiency.” They say that the program isn’t delivering like it used to, that there are too many safety incidents, too much waste, and not enough graduates crossing the stage. They point to a $140 million deficit in FY24, and a projected $213 million hole in FY25. And they’re waving around an old New York Times article that said Job Corps couldn’t account for 94% of $50 million in transition counseling funds.
But these aren’t reasons for cutting the program. They’re excuses and a paper trail of justifications stitched together after the decision was already made. This administration doesn’t care about the kids in Job Corps. They don’t just want to cut the program; they want to eliminate the kids who use Job Corps. While Trump’s administration is crying about waste and inefficiency, they’ve got no problem spending $1 billion to upgrade a $400 million airplane, on the taxpayer’s dime, and planning a $45 million Nazi-style parade for his birthday.
Could Job Corps use reform? Absolutely. There’s always room for improvement. There are shady contractors who’ve profited off the backs of poor kids just like there are shady billionaires profiting off war, fossil fuels, and federal tax breaks. The solution shouldn’t be to kill the program, it should be to fix it. You don’t bulldoze the whole building because the pipes leak. You replace the contractors who plunder the funds; you improve oversight; and you center the program back on its mission: helping kids survive, thrive, and build a future.
The real question isn’t why the program isn’t perfect. The real question is why this administration’s first response to struggling programs that serve the poor is always the same: slash it, burn it down, and walk away.
This isn’t just about Job Corps. It’s part of a calculated, multi-tiered strategy by the Trump administration to dismantle the very foundations that support marginalized communities, especially Black and Brown youth. The writing is on the wall. Trump and his ilk know that by 2045, the U.S. is projected to become a majority non-white nation. And the right-wing response is to erect barriers at every stage of life to suppress this emerging majority.
The administration has aggressively targeted immigrants by seeking to deport individuals back to countries like Haiti, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba. Recent Supreme Court decisions have even greenlit some of these actions, reinforcing a narrative that immigrants are a financial drain and a criminal threat. These moves aren’t isolated policy choices, they’re part of a deliberate strategy to erase their futures. And that same logic is baked into the Job Corps cuts since 67% of kids in Job Corps are Black and Brown. These are young people trying to break the cycle of poverty, finish school, learn a trade, and build a life. By gutting Job Corps, they’re slamming the door on these kids before they get a shot, just like they slam the door on immigrants who seek refuge here.
Meanwhile, the Department of Education faces a proposed 15% budget cut, with plans to eliminate programs like TRIO and slash Federal Work-Study funding by 80%. After-school programs, vital for low-income communities, are also on the chopping block. Even the Head Start program, which provides early childhood education to low-income families, is threatened with elimination.
It’s a full-scale war on the entire pipeline that helps Black and Brown children survive, grow, and break cycles of poverty. Cut the programs that prepare them early (Head Start). Cut the programs that support them during school (after-school programs, TRIO). Cut the programs that give them a shot at higher education (Work-Study, Pell Grants). And then, when they’re too old for school but too young for the workforce, cut the Job Corps centers, which serve as the last chance for many of them to get a foothold in life. Dismantle every rung on the ladder that might help Black and Brown kids climb out of poverty.
Beyond education and the concerted effort to dismantle DEI programs that promote racial and gender equity, the administration is undermining public institutions that serve as community pillars. Funding for national parks, libraries, and museums is being slashed. It’s all connected. The cuts to Job Corps are part of a larger strategy to shrink the world of Black and Brown kids by cutting off not just access to education and jobs, but access to culture, history, and knowledge. And when they slash funding for national parks, libraries, and museums, they’re shrinking the spaces where Black and Brown kids can go to learn, to imagine, to belong.
These places, like Job Corps, public schools, DEI programs, after-school programs, libraries, and museums, are lifelines. They’re the soft places that catch kids before they fall through the cracks. They’re where kids learn who they are, where they come from, and what’s possible. Take them away, and what’s left? A system that locks kids into poverty, strips away opportunity, and leaves them to rot.
This orchestrated dismantling of support systems is not about fiscal responsibility; it’s about reasserting a hierarchical social order reminiscent of the Jim Crow era. By stripping away access to education, healthcare, housing, and public services, the administration is effectively reducing the life chances of marginalized groups, ensuring that the cycle of poverty and disenfranchisement continues.
Since “Make America Great Again” means resurrecting the oppressive structures of the past that kept Black and Brown kids out of opportunity for generations, then this administration is well on its way.
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