With no deal in sight to end the second-longest government shutdown, federal employees facing layoffs and furloughs say this situation is taking an unimaginable toll
Many furloughed and excepted federal employees received a partial paycheck earlier this month and are on track to miss their first full paycheck as soon as this week.
Meanwhile, some of the approximately 4,000 federal employees who recently received layoff notices say they are being pushed to their limits. Some say they’re unsure how they will continue to pay for housing or essential medical procedures if they lose their health insurance.
A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from implementing many of these RIFs. But many federal employees who have already received layoff notices say they’re afraid of what happens next.
In recent court filings, several laid-off federal employees described the toll these layoffs are having on their lives. One federal employee told the court she received her RIF notice while on maternity leave. Others said they received RIF notices earlier this year that were rescinded, and have now received a second RIF notice this month.
Dorothy Roper, an IT specialist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the court on Wednesday that she received a RIF notice on Oct. 10 — her second this year.
“This is not my first time receiving a RIF notice,” Roper wrote.
Roper said her entire team received RIF notices in April, when the Department of Health and Human Services laid off more than 10,000 employees. Roper said her team was eventually reinstated.
“Now, six months later, the agency has issued a RIF for my position again,” Roper wrote. “This RIF and the uncertainty of whether I have a job is causing me deep financial and emotional distress.”
Mayra Medrano, program analyst at the Minority Business Development Agency within the Commerce Department, also received her second RIF notice this year.
Medrano told the court she received her first RIF notice while she was in the hospital, covering from a “stress-induced” seizure, but was later reinstated. This time around, she’s not sure what to expect.
“I am reliving the nightmare of the first RIF,” she wrote.
LaMarla Stevens, management analyst in the Office of Housing Counseling at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, said she received a RIF notice while still on maternity leave.
“I had expected to have several more months of maternity leave to focus on caring for my four-month-old son. Because of the RIF, I do not know whether I will receive back pay for the remainder of my paid maternity leave,” Stevens wrote.
“Even if I am able to find a job, going back to work means incurring months of child care expenses that I had not planned for and that I don’t know if I will be able to afford,” she added.
Christine Grassman, a vocational program specialist at the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services in the Education Department, told the court also worried about being able to keep paying her mortgage after receiving a RIF notice this month.
Grassman is blind, and her husband, who is also blind, is not currently working. At 56, Grassman said she planned to keep working for the federal government until she reached retirement age.
“The idea of losing my job is both terrifying and devastating. I have worked very hard to be a gainfully employed person with a disability, and I had intended to continue working in the government until I retired,” she wrote.
Daniel Ronneburg, president of AFSCME Local 1653, which represents Federal Aviation Administration employees, said he received a life-saving kidney transplant just before the government shutdown. Now furloughed, Ronneburg said he fears losing his health coverage if he receives a layoff notice.
“If I lose my job and health care coverage due to a RIF during the ongoing shutdown, I will not be able to afford my post-surgery treatment for my kidney transplant that I could never pay for without the assistance of health insurance,” Ronneburg wrote.
The judge’s temporary restraining order blocking layoffs currently covers five employee unions. Plaintiffs are looking to add another three unions — the National Treasury Employees Union, the American Federation of Teachers and the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers
Other federal employees said RIFs and furloughs are making it harder for employees still on the job to keep up with the workload. At a hearing convened by House Democrats, Paul Osadebe, a civil rights attorney at HUD who’s currently on administrative leave and awaiting termination, said the department laid off “almost all” of the investigators across the country who investigate whether Fair Housing Act violations have received layoff notices.
“You can’t tell me that you’re going to enforce people’s housing civil rights. Meanwhile, no one can look into any case to figure out whether someone’s rights were violated. That just doesn’t pass any smell test,” Osadebe said.
“Even before being furloughed, our ability to do our work was being dismantled, piece by piece and worker by worker,” he added.
James Jones, a furloughed National Park Service maintenance mechanic at the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina, said many national parks remain open, but few employees remain on the job to provide upkeep.
“Visitors are flooding in right now by the thousands,” Jones said. This is our busiest time of the year, and there’s hardly anyone there to keep up police in the parks and make them safe for folks — just limited law enforcement staff.”
Rob Shriver, the former acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, now XXX at Democracy Forward, said these mass layoffs are scaring off the next generation of federal employees.
“The government was recruiting young people, recruiting tech talent, recruiting AI talent. They were, for the most part, probationary employees at the beginning of the Trump administration, and they were summarily terminated without cause, just because the Trump administration thought they could do that,” Shriver said. “What message does that send to young people, to tech talent, to the greatest AI minds in the country? We’re telling you, on the one hand, we want you to come and work for us, and on the other hand, we’re letting you go with no good reason at all.”
Republican lawmakers told reporters on Wednesday that the protracted shutdown is pushing some agencies to the limit when it comes to providing services and issuing benefits to the public.
Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) said national parks remain open through state funds, but warned, “this can’t continue indefinitely, despite all the extraordinary efforts being made.”
“At some point, without funding, the public lands will not be accessible to the public. The longer this unnecessary shutdown lasts, the more negative consequences that we’ll start to see. Without regular staffing, litter will pile up, and park ecosystems will be affected,” Westerman said.
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