The National Institutes of Health employee said she knew things would be difficult for federal workers after Donald Trump was elected. But she never imagined it would be like this.<\/p>\n
Focused on Alzheimer\u2019s and other dementia research, the worker is among thousands who abruptly lost their jobs in the Trump administration\u2019s federal workforce purge. The way she was terminated \u2014 in February through a boilerplate notice alleging poor performance, something she pointedly said was \u201cnot true\u201d \u2014 made her feel she was \u201closing hope in humans.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she can\u2019t focus or meditate, and can barely go to the gym. At the urging of her therapist, she made an appointment with a psychiatrist in March after she felt she\u2019d \u201chit the bottom,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am going through hell,\u201d said the employee, who worked at the National Institute on Aging, one of 27 centers that make up the NIH. The worker, like others interviewed for this story, was granted anonymity because of the fear of professional retaliation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know I am a mother. I am a wife. But I am also a person who was very happy with her career,\u201d she said. \u201cThey took my job and my life from my hands without any reason.\u201d<\/p>\n
President Trump and his allies have increasingly denigrated the roughly 2 million people who make up the federal workforce, 80% of whom work outside the Washington, D.C., area. Trump has said<\/a> federal workers are \u201cdestroying this country,\u201d called them \u201ccrooked\u201d and \u201cdishonest,\u201d and insinuated that they\u2019re lazy. \u201cMany of them don\u2019t work at all,\u201d he said earlier this month<\/a>.<\/p>\n Elon Musk \u2014 who is the world\u2019s richest person and whose Department of Government Efficiency, created by a Trump executive order, is infiltrating federal agencies and spearheading mass firings \u2014 has claimed without evidence<\/a> that \u201cthere are a number of people on the government payroll who are dead\u201d and others \u201cwho are not real people.\u201d At a conference for conservatives in February, Musk brandished what he called \u201cthe chain saw for bureaucracy\u201d and said that \u201cwaste is pretty much everywhere<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The firings that began in February are taking a significant toll on federal employees\u2019 mental health. Workers said they feel overwhelmed and demoralized, have obtained or considered seeking psychiatric care and medication, and feel anxious about being able to pay bills or afford college for their children.<\/p>\n Federal employees are bracing for more layoffs after agencies were required to deliver plans by this month for large-scale staff reductions. Compounding the uncertainty: After judges ruled that some initial firings were illegal, agencies have rehired some workers and placed others on paid administrative leave. Then, Trump on March 20 issued a memo<\/a> giving the Office of Personnel Management more power to fire people across agencies.<\/p>\n Researchers who study job loss say these mass layoffs not only are disrupting the lives of tens of thousands of federal workers but also will reverberate out to their spouses, children, and communities.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d expect this will have long-lasting impacts on these people\u2019s lives and those around them,\u201d said Jennie Brand<\/a>, a professor of sociology at UCLA who wrote a paper about the implications of job loss<\/a>. \u201cWe can see this impact years down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n Studies have shown that people who are unemployed experience greater anxiety<\/a>, depression<\/a>, and suicide risk<\/a>. The longer the period of unemployment, the worse the effects.<\/p>\n Couples fight more when one person loses a job, and if it\u2019s a man, divorce rates increase<\/a>.<\/p>\n Children with an unemployed parent are more likely to do poorly in school<\/a>, repeat a grade, or drop out. It can even affect whether they go to college, Brand said. There\u2019s an \u201cintergenerational impact of instability,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n And it doesn\u2019t stop there. When people lose their jobs, especially when it\u2019s many people at once, the wealth and resources available in their community are reduced<\/a>. Kids see fewer employed role models<\/a>. As families are forced to move, neighborhood stability gets upended. Unemployed people often withdraw from social and civic life<\/a>, avoiding community gatherings, church, or other places where they might have to discuss or explain their job loss.<\/p>\n Although getting a new job can alleviate some of these problems, it doesn\u2019t eliminate them<\/a>, Brand said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not as if people just get new jobs and then pick up the activities they used to be involved with,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s not a quick recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n Slashing Cultural Norms<\/strong><\/p>\n The firings are upending a long-standing norm of the public sector \u2014 in exchange for earning less money compared with private-sector work, people had greater job security and more generous benefits. Now that\u2019s no longer the case, fired workers said in interviews.<\/p>\n With the American economy moving toward temporary and gig jobs, landing a traditional government job was supposed to be \u201clike you\u2019ve got the golden goose,\u201d said Blake Allan<\/a>, a professor of counseling psychology at the University of Houston who researches how the quality of work affects people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n Even federal workers who are still employed face the daily question of whether they\u2019ll be fired next. That constant state of insecurity, Allan said, can create chronic stress, which is linked to<\/a> anxiety, depression, digestive problems, heart disease, and a host of other health issues.<\/p>\n One employee at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, who was granted anonymity to avoid professional retaliation, said the administration\u2019s actions seem designed to cause enough emotional distress that workers voluntarily leave. \u201cI feel like this ax will always be over my head for as long as I\u2019m here and this administration is here,\u201d the employee said.<\/p>\n Federal workers who passed on higher-paying private sector jobs because they wanted to serve their country may feel especially gutted to hear Trump and Musk denigrate their work as wasteful.<\/p>\n \u201cWork is such a fundamental part of our identity,\u201d Allan said. When it\u2019s suddenly lost, \u201cit can be really devastating to your sense of purpose and identity, your sense of social mattering, especially when it\u2019s in a climate of devaluing what you do.\u201d<\/p>\n Andrew Hazelton, a scientist in Florida, was working on improving hurricane forecasts when he was fired in February from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The mass firings were carried out \u201cwith no humanity,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s really tough.\u201d<\/p>\n Hazelton became a federal employee in October but had worked alongside NOAA scientists for over eight years, including as an employee at the University of Miami. He lost his job as part of a purge targeting probationary workers, who lack civil service protections against firings.<\/p>\n His friends set up a GoFundMe crowdfunding page to provide a financial cushion for him, his wife, and their four children. Then in March, after a federal judge\u2019s order requiring federal agencies to rescind those terminations, he was notified that he had been reinstated on paid administrative leave.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s created a lot of instability,\u201d said Hazelton, who still isn\u2019t being allowed to do his work. \u201cWe just want to serve the public and get our forecasts and our data out there to help people make decisions, regardless of politics.\u201d<\/p>\n Health Coverage Collateral<\/strong><\/p>\n Along with their jobs, many federal workers are losing their health insurance, leaving them ill equipped to seek care just as they and their families are facing a tidal wave of potential mental and physical health consequences. And the nation\u2019s mental health system is already underfunded, understaffed, and overstretched. Even with insurance, many people wait weeks or months<\/a> to receive care.<\/p>\n \u201cMost people don\u2019t have a bunch of money sitting around to spend on therapy when you need to cover your mortgage for a couple months and try to find a different job,\u201d Allan said.<\/p>\n A second NIH worker considered talking to a psychiatrist and potentially going on an antidepressant because of anxiety after being fired in February.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then the first thought after that was: \u2018Oh, I\u2019m about to not have insurance. I can\u2019t do that,\u2019\u201d said the worker, who was granted anonymity to avoid professional retaliation. The worker\u2019s health benefits were set to end in April \u2014 leaving too little time to get an appointment with a psychiatrist, let alone start a prescription.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to go on something and then have to stop it immediately,\u201d the worker said.<\/p>\n The employee, one of several NIH workers reinstated this month, still fears getting fired again. The worker focuses on Alzheimer\u2019s and related dementias and was inspired to join the agency because a grandmother has the disease.<\/p>\n The worker worries that \u201cdecades of research are going to be gone and people are going to be left with nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI go from anxiety to deep sadness when I think about my own family,\u201d the employee said.<\/p>\n The NIH, with its $47 billion annual budget, is the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world. The agency awarded nearly 59,000 grants<\/a> in fiscal 2023, but the Trump administration has begun canceling hundreds of grants on research topics that new political appointees oppose, including vaccine hesitancy and the health of LGBTQ+ populations.<\/p>\n The NIH worker who worked at the National Institute on Aging was informed in mid-March that she would be on paid administrative leave \u201cuntil further notice.\u201d She said she is not sure whether she would find a similar job, adding that she \u201ccannot be at home doing nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n Apart from loving her job, she said, she has one child in college and another in high school and needs stable income. \u201cI don\u2019t know what I\u2019m going to do next.\u201d<\/p>\n We\u2019d like to speak with current and former personnel from the Department of Health and Human Services or its component agencies who believe the public should understand the impact of what\u2019s happening within the federal health bureaucracy. Please message KFF Health News on Signal at (415) 519-8778 or get in touch here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF<\/a>.<\/p>\nUSE OUR CONTENT<\/h3>\n