Do you see what the Trump administration is doing to Philadelphians?

Don’t turn away.

Keep reading. You need to know this. The following is a real-life example of how the lives of three local residents have been upended by the presidency of Donald Trump.

Philadelphia’s Internal Revenue Service office laid off each of them on Feb. 20. They are part of a group of roughly 400 other probationary employees who had been working at the IRS office at 30th and Market Streets whose jobs were also terminated that day.

Look, I’m all for eliminating government waste, but make it make sense. It’s tax season, and the people I interviewed all worked in collections.

It’s disturbing to watch how Trump is allowing unelected billionaire Elon Musk, through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), to destroy the livelihoods of tens of thousands of federal workers.

I can’t help but feel for them.

Obtaining a “good government job” has helped many achieve the American dream. The federal government has historically been a place where African Americans who were overlooked in the private sector could get hired and rise through the ranks.

Yolanda Cowan felt like she had made it when she got hired by the IRS last year. Her first day on the job was July 29, which was her father’s birthday. She was thrilled because the position in collections paid a middle-class income and provided excellent benefits, as well as the opportunity to work remotely two days a week.

“This was a power move for me,” said Cowan, 51. “It took me a year to get in the government. I was so excited. I mean, I loved my job. I loved my coworkers. We were like a family.”

Then last week came word her position was among those terminated. She returned her key card, government identification, and laptop on Feb. 20. And just like that, her dream of a career in the federal government ended. “I am so very hurt at how they did us,” Cowan said. “Everybody was blindsided.”

She left behind around 300 cases of unpaid back taxes that hadn’t been processed. Cowan, who used to work for Aetna, had been actively working on an inventory of 65 cases. She’s not entitled to severance pay because she was still completing her one-year probation.

“Do you know what they told us? ‘You guys can apply for unemployment and welfare. You can apply for Medicaid,’” she said.

Before starting at the IRS in July, Mayra Gonzalez worked in an Amazon warehouse for seven years. The job was physically exhausting for the 35-year-old single mother. She had just been offered a promotion when she got an offer to work at the IRS.

It meant driving from Trenton to Center City, but it was a relief to finally have an office job that included two days of remote work. That meant she wasn’t dragging home physically exhausted.

Gonzalez bought a desk, painted a spare bedroom pink, and created a home office in her three-bedroom home. The evening shift she worked for the IRS from 4 p.m. until 12:30 a.m. gave her more time with her 4-year-old. It was just the step she needed toward stability and the middle class. Then she learned about the layoffs.

“I’ve never been without a full-time job, and now I’m just like, ‘What am I going to do?’” Gonzalez told me last week. “I’ve got to pay rent. I’ve got a car note to pay. I’ve got a baby to look out for.”

Instead of creating installment repayment plans for people and businesses in tax arrears, she is driving DoorDash and working part time in a warehouse.

Michael Rosado, 27, who started on the same day as Cowan and Gonzalez, also thought he had signed up for a long career. “As a bilingual person, I was helping my coworkers to translate,” he said. “I was learning, but at the same time, I was helping others.”

The last days at the IRS office were emotionally difficult. “It was very sad seeing everybody crying,” he recalled. “I just feel like it’s very unfair.”

Rosado, a Camden resident, is applying for unemployment as well as looking for his next opportunity, possibly in banking or finance. “It was more than a job,” he told me. “It was a career.”

That last part is what makes what is happening to federal workers so devastating. I only hope prospective employers will read this, understand the worth of these workers, and hire them.