In a sweeping move initiated by President Donald Trump’s administration, approximately 80,000 federal employees overseen by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have received offers to voluntarily resign in exchange for financial incentives. This strategy, part of government-wide budget reduction efforts, proposes a severance payment of up to $25,000 for those opting to leave their roles, particularly affecting those involved in disease research, food inspection, and the management of Medicare and Medicaid.
The opportunity for resignation begins the following Monday, with personnel given up until 5 p.m. on Friday to make their decision regarding this voluntary separation proposal. This notification was disseminated extensively throughout the department, encompassing teams at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration located in Maryland.
The decision arrives as part of a broader effort to present plans to scale down federal workforce sizes, targeting Health and Human Services—one of the most financially demanding federal departments. With an annual budget nearing $1.7 trillion, largely allocated towards health insurance programs such as Medicare for older adults and Medicaid for low-income and disabled citizens, trimming its significant expenses is a key priority.
As of Sunday, there had been no official statement from the Department of Health and Human Services regarding this voluntary separation proposal. However, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was appointed as the health secretary, has previously suggested the need for substantial reductions in department staffing. Last year, he aimed for a sharp cut of 600 employees at the National Institutes of Health but did not accomplish this to the full extent.
In a recent interview, Kennedy indicated his intentions to revise staffing within public health bodies, alleging that some employees had contributed to poor decision-making, particularly in nutritional guidelines. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has been consistently working, alongside entrepreneur Elon Musk, to curtail expenditures by reducing the number of federal employees. Earlier in the year, a deferred resignation offer was extended granting federal workers eight months of severance pay, with multiple early-career employees also being dismissed from various departments, including Health and Human Services.
This latest endeavor to decrease the number of federal health workers occurs at a challenging time as the CDC is actively engaged in containing a serious measles outbreak in regions of West Texas and New Mexico, amidst legislative discussions on significant cutbacks to Medicaid funding in the national budget. The instructions sent to HHS employees direct them to consult their local human resources offices if they are interested in pursuing the voluntary resignation offer.
