FACT SHEET: Trump & Elon’s Layoffs Jeopardize Essential Services Americans Rely On, Threaten Critical Agency Objectives Keeping Americans Safe & Healthy

02.14.25

Washington, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) responded to the Trump administration's mass firings of federal workers who are on their "probationary" period-meaning: federal workers who were hired or promoted within the past 1-2 years.

There is nothing efficient about indiscriminate mass firings. Although the exact number of employees in their probationary period changes with each pay period, data from March 2024 shows more than 220,000 federal employees were within their probationary period. More than one quarter, or 56,000, were employees at the Veterans Health Administration. The Partnership for Public Service estimates that there are now closer to 250,000 federal employees in their probationary period. Moreover, these employees are younger (around 27% are under the age of 30) and have the highest rates of employee engagement among all government workers. President Trump has also recently signed an Executive Order, which mandates that only one employee be hired for every four who are fired or depart.

In a statement, Senator Murray said:

"There is nothing 'efficient' about indiscriminately firing thousands upon thousands of workers in red and blue states whose work is badly needed.

"We are talking about safety engineers at the Hanford nuclear cleanup site, VA doctors and nurses, utility line workers in my home state, CDC health experts who investigate disease outbreaks, and so many others.

"Two billionaires who have zero concept of what the federal workforce does are breaking the American government-decimating essential services and leaving all of us worse off.

"The lives upended by these callous firings will not just be the federal workers who lose their jobs, but the millions of Americans who rely on services these employees provide: health care, food safety, housing, lifesaving research, and so much else.

"Let's be clear that these sweeping layoffs do not address fraud or waste. These firings are totally arbitrary-pushing out high performers and the promising next generation of our federal workforce who won't be easily replaced.

"The scale and scope of Trump and Elon's purge will set our country back decades, but we are not powerless in this moment. It is incumbent on every one of us to speak out for a government that works for middle-class families and working people-not just billionaires who will never need to call about their Social Security benefits or file a disability claim at VA."

SEE BELOW FOR A SELECT, NON-COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF THE IMPACTS OF THESE LAYOFFS:

VETERANS AFFAIRS: In 2022, Congress passed the largest expansion of veterans' benefits in two decades, requiring a significant influx of resources and staff to ensure veterans are getting the medical care and benefits they are owed.

• The Trump administration's mass firing of more than 1,000 VA employees just yesterday will badly undercut VA's ability to process the significant uptick in claims and benefits the agency has seen since the PACT Act was signed into law. The Trump administration has not explicitly exempted doctors, nurses, medical researchers, or disability claims raters from the layoffs.
• These layoffs likely mean longer wait times for veterans trying to receive medical care, and they could mean that ongoing clinical trials may be forced to come to an abrupt halt. They likely also mean veterans will wait longer for their disability claims to be processed and approved, and that training for new claims raters that VA has invested in over the last year would go to waste.
• There is already a shortage of VA doctors and nurses across the country-in red and blue states. The hiring freeze prohibits new disability claims raters from coming on board, and with the firing of recently hired raters, the backlog of unprocessed claims will grow above 254,000.

SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (SBA): The SBA provides essential resources and support to small businesses and entrepreneurs across the country. This week, the Trump administration reportedly moved to fire 720 employees, including those recently hired to help small businesses and homeowners recover from devastating disasters. Communities and main streets across the country-from North Carolina to California-are still reeling from the impacts of hurricanes and wildfires; laying off SBA employees will curtail the SBA's efforts to help small businesses on the ground recover.

OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT (OPM): OPM serves as the chief human resources and personnel policy manager for the federal government and processes retirements for all federal workers, including those in the postal service. OPM employees help ensure federal employees in every part of the country receive their paychecks and retirement benefits. Without adequate staffing levels, federal workers will experience disruptions in essential services OPM provides.

• On February 13, OPM fired 250 probationary employees. Management was not notified that the agency would be firing people that day and probationary employees were given 30 minutes to leave the building. There were no exceptions given for high-performing employees or those that managers had prioritized on requested forms.

GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION (GSA): GSA oversees most government contracts, manages federal property, and oversees basic federal government functions. Housed at GSA, Technology Transformation Services is responsible for FedRAMP, which sets cybersecurity standards for federal contractors, and Login.gov, which the American public uses to access their Social Security statements online. GSA was one of the earliest DOGE targets.

• An estimated 100 tech workers at GSA have been laid off this week alone. These employees assist with important federal initiatives, including the Direct File program, which is finally helping Americans file their taxes directly with the IRS-for free.

HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT: The nationwide housing shortage is one area in which both sides of the aisle agree needs urgent solutions, and HUD plays a critical role in working to tackle the crisis. Without sufficient staff to keep things moving at HUD, hundreds of projects across the country are going to be delayed. Many projects will fall apart completely, exacerbating the housing crisis. Even one month of delays on a multimillion-dollar project can cost builders immensely. In just a few weeks of hasty decisions, the Trump administration has proposed drastic cuts that will hurt some of the most vulnerable people and families across the country, undercut economic development, and stunt disaster recovery.

• Even under current staffing levels, grantees struggle to receive adequate and timely customer service and processing from HUD, and these actions will make it devastatingly worse.
• Based on current estimates, Trump's personnel actions to date will result in about a 13% reduction in HUD's entire workforce.
• This figure could grow to 50% percent based on reported plans for additional staff cuts across HUD's programs. One component was directed to reduce staff by 84%, and that office oversees the community and economic development, long-term disaster, and homeless assistance funding that cities around the country, in red and blue states, rely on.

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY: The Department of Energy is responsible for overseeing U.S. energy policy and production, our nuclear weapons program, and national nuclear policy. Among other things, Department of Energy staff plays an essential role in turbocharging American innovation, creating new good-paying jobs, lowering families' energy bills, strengthening America's energy security, and maintaining our nation's nuclear weapons stockpile.

• The Department of Energy has now laid off 1,800 employees out of 15,850 employees, which is roughly 11% of its workforce. The layoffs have occurred Department-wide; however, the climate and infrastructure deployment offices have been hit hardest, including the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and the Manufacturing and Grid Deployment Offices. These layoffs will seriously hamper the implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, which have created hundreds of thousands of new jobs-compounding the incredible damage that this administration has already caused with its illegal freeze of funding provided by the two landmark laws. The layoffs include staff responsible for ensuring that funding to lower households' energy costs gets out the door.

• In Washington state alone, more than a dozen employees at the Hanford Site and more than 600 at the Bonneville Power Administration have been laid off-which will have cascading ripple effects on the cleanup efforts at the Hanford site and the security of the Pacific Northwest energy grid. Notably, these numbers do not include employees who opted into the "deferred resignation" program.

INDIAN HEALTH SERVICE: The Indian Health Service provides direct health care to 2.8 million American Indians and Alaska Natives, but has, for years, been plagued with chronic staffing challenges and consistently high vacancy rates (upwards of 29%) across all service areas. The staffing shortage has, for decades, undercut the quality of care to Tribal communities across the country. Congress has consistently identified recruitment and retention as a high priority for the agency and has worked on a bipartisan basis to fully fund staffing at IHS facilities and to increase hiring incentives to provide relief.

• The Trump administration's mass firing of more than an estimated 850 employees includes doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, and lab technicians-and will devastate the Indian Health Service's ability to provide services for patients and make an already dire situation worse. These indiscriminate cuts to IHS' health care workforce will leave thousands without access to critical care and could cost lives.
• American Indians and Alaska Natives have a life expectancy rate of 11 years less than the national average of 65.2 years old. That's the same life expectancy rate as the overall population of the United States in 1944.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR: The Interior Department is responsible for the management of public lands, waters, and natural resources, including both conservation and development on federal lands under the National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Land Management, as well as administering programs affecting Native Americans. The Department is reportedly laying off 2,300 employees.

• These layoffs will lead to a damaging loss of full-time staff at the National Park Service, which is already operating well below prior staffing levels despite significant increases in visitation. As a result of onerous budget caps during the 2010s, the National Park Service lost 15% of its staff while park visitation also increased by 15%. National Park units experience a summer surge in visitation that peaks in July, and the Service hires more than 6,000 seasonal employees to manage that extra work. Without full-time or seasonal staff during this peak season, visitor centers may close, bathrooms will not be properly maintained, campgrounds may close, guided tours will be cut back or altogether canceled, emergency response times will drop, and visitor services like safety advice, trail recommendations, and interpretation will be unavailable.
• These indiscriminate cuts are also likely to jeopardize the President's own "America-First" energy agenda, delaying the processing, planning, permitting, environmental compliance, and approval of new and expanded transmission lines, renewable energy projects, oil and gas leasing and drilling, critical minerals mines, coal mining, and other development on federal lands or waters.

Federal Bureau of Investigation: The FBI is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. The Bureau is reportedly amassing a list of thousands of probationary employees, including special agents, for possible layoffs-which comes at a time of incredible uncertainty at the FBI. The FBI already faces a salaries and expenses resources shortfall, because of the Fiscal Responsibility Act's tight constraints, which has already resulted in roughly 1,000 fewer staff. A purge-possibly in the thousands-of FBI employees will worsen an already bad situation-seriously undermining the FBI's ability to combat terrorism, violent crime, cybercrime, drugs and gangs, transnational organized crime, and child and sex trafficking exploitation.

• The FBI has over 2,800 probationary employees, nearly 600 of which are special agents.
• The first year cost alone of recruiting, hiring, and training a new FBI special agent is nearly $250,000. Firing hundreds of new agents would be a colossal waste of American taxpayers' dollars.

FOREST SERVICE: The Forest Service is responsible for managing 193 million acres of national forests and grasslands and is reportedly laying off 2,400 employees. While some exemptions are expected for law enforcement and firefighters, many of those being let go are qualified to help respond to wildfires and are a vital resource during the height of fire season. Other recent hires were brought on to accelerate hazardous fuels reduction and community wildfire defense projects to decrease the risk of catastrophic wildfires to communities across the country.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY: Approximately 1,700 EPA staff have so far been notified they could be terminated. As of December 2024, EPA had 15,572 total full-time employees on staff, which include scientists, toxicologists, biologists, staff overseeing cleanups at Superfund sites in red and blue states, and many more. Indiscriminate layoffs will seriously jeopardize energy projects that have created good jobs, efforts to keep American families' water supply clean and safe, waste site cleanup efforts, and much more.

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: HHS' civil service and nonpartisan leadership consists of scientists, researchers, medical professionals, child welfare specialists, and other dedicated public servants. Its nonpartisan leadership is tasked with implementing laws spanning HHS' far-reaching responsibilities and accordingly is retained to continue building on advances made in medicine, public health, and social services. HHS' nonpartisan career leadership does not routinely turn over between administrations.

• Nonetheless, Secretary Kennedy, now having been confirmed, is expected to seek the unprecedented resignation of HHS nonpartisan career leadership and has already begun firing thousands of probationary employees across HHS.
• Injecting politics deep into HHS will undermine everything from biomedical research to public health to substance use treatment to child welfare. This is how now-Secretary Kennedy will substitute his own beliefs for established scientific consensus.
• Additionally: firing thousands of staff across the Department will have far-reaching impacts on basic government services, potentially including the administration of Medicare. Firings so far have included nurses, pharmacists, patient care technicians, and other staff critical for patient care at NIH's clinical center, as well as hundreds of early career scientists and researchers.

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION: So far, Department of Education employees have already been put on administrative leave simply because they took a training encouraged by the first Trump administration. Other employees fired or expected to be fired at the Department of Education will put cybersecurity efforts, ongoing work on the FAFSA, and maintenance of student aid processing systems in serious jeopardy.

AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH SERVICE: ARS is the USDA's principal in-house research agency that seeks to develop and transfer solutions to agricultural problems of high national priority. This includes research related to ensuring high-quality, safe food, assessing the nutritional needs of Americans, and sustaining a competitive U.S. agricultural economy.

• The blanket firing of hundreds of scientists and technicians across the country who were in probationary periods will undercut new, ongoing, and urgent research projects studying livestock and crop production, food safety, environmental stewardship, human nutrition, and value-added agriculture.

ANIMAL AND PLANT HEALTH INSPECTION SERVICE: Scores of employees from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) were abruptly fired regardless of performance status. APHIS protects our country against the emergence of deadly animal and zoonotic diseases and prevents the introduction of destructive invasive pests. This work is vital to ensuring our farmers and ranchers can safely feed the world. As avian influenza rages across poultry and dairy farms and continues to infect people, the last thing our country needs is a shortage of staff focused on addressing this threat.

RURAL DEVELOPMENT: Hundreds of employees working to help rural communities across the country were laid off overnight. Rural Development provides financial assistance for communities to have safe drinking water, affordable housing, high-speed internet, and access to health and safety services. Without adequate staffing, loans and grants will not be processed, and these communities will not have the resources they need to thrive.

NATURAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION SERVICE: Hundreds of employees working to assist producers with access to voluntary conservation programs and practices were laid off. Those employees are based in offices across the country and provide technical assistance to help improve soil quality, reduce the energy used on farms, and provide other climate mitigation benefits.

NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION: NOAA is the nation's leading scientific and regulatory agency charged with forecasting weather, monitoring oceanic and atmospheric conditions, and managing marine and coastal resources. Americans rely on the National Weather Service's data forecasts daily but the critical nature of the mission to life and property comes to light during hurricanes, drought, wildfires, tornados, and other extreme weather events. The National Weather Service already struggles with staffing shortages but has made a concerted effort to increase the number of meteorologists. As such, many meteorologists have only been in the role for less than a year and are within their probationary period.

• Reports that NOAA will be required to lay off more than a thousand probationary employees, including meteorologists, which amount to 10% of NOAA's workforce would result in disruptions to weather forecasts.
• Similar impacts could be felt to the sustainable management of the nation's fisheries since NOAA relies on wage mariners to staff the fisheries' survey vessels that perform stock assessments that feed into accurate sustainable catch limits on which the fishing industry relies.

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