Consider This from NPR
After weeks of chaos, the future is uncertain for thousands of federal workers
Sun, 16 Feb 2025
Across the country and around the world, tens of thousands of federal workers face uncertainty amid an unprecedented reduction and restructuring of the federal workforce.President Donald Trump has signed a flurry of executive orders — freezing hiring, ordering teleworkers back to the office, reclassifying employees and dismantling wide-ranging DEI programs.What will mass layoffs mean for federal workers and the government services they provide?For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at [email protected] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
What impact do federal layoffs have on workers like Taylor Sonney?
Last week, more employees across the federal government received termination notices as the Trump administration forged ahead with its plan to drastically reduce the federal workforce. One agency hit hard by layoffs was the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Taylor Sonney was a compliance examiner at CFPB based in Houston, Texas.
My job was basically traveling across America physically to financial institutions, and really examining, making sure that they're treating people fairly.
He'd been working at the CFPB for 11 months, just one month shy of the end of his probationary period, when he found out he'd lost his job.
Everyone pretty much got fired via a mail merge form that was blasted out to everyone. That, in my opinion, wasn't very accurate. It sort of touched on points of merit. However, you know, all of us have gotten very high regards in performance reviews, and we're all very hardworking people.
Sonny and his colleagues are weighing what happens next. There could be opportunities for recourse, like filing an appeal if they believe they were fired for partisan political reasons. But for now, Sonny is processing the loss of his job and what mass layoffs could mean for the future of the CFPB.
I was incredibly happy to be able to protect consumers on a federal level. It truly is a nonpartisan mission, which is unfortunate that it's been so heavily politicized. It's really something that the American people can't afford to lose.
Across federal agencies, many who still have jobs are worried about what will happen next. Liz Goggin is a licensed clinical social worker for the Department of Veterans Affairs who lives with her family in Washington, D.C. After Trump's funding freeze, her job at the VA was safe. But her husband's foreign aid job wasn't.
It became pretty clear that he was very likely to lose his job.
Days later, Goggin received the fork-in-the-road email sent to nearly every federal employee, giving them a deadline to resign and stay on the payroll through September.
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