Trump administration’s HHS cuts

In March 2025, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), sent termination notices to around 10,000 employees across HHS. Additionally, around 10,000 HHS employees resigned or retired early, in part due to the government’s offer of Fork-in-the road and termination of probationary employees. As a result, the HHS staff workforce was reduced from about 82,000 to about 62,000, a decrease of nearly 1/4. These staff cuts were accompanied by a plan to reorganize the Department by consolidating their divisions from 28 to 15.

Richard Frank and Sherry Glied, in a new paper published by Health Affairs Forefront, note the history of previous government efforts to scale back the size of the government for efficiency and how current efforts differ substantially. The authors analyze the reorganization of HHS through staff cuts to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and how it will likely reduce HHS’ capacity to effectively evaluate and review health programs and policies and actively work to align with the administration’s policy priorities. The reorganization of HHS may have staggering short-term and long-term consequences on critical health programs and the quality of public health services, such as inspection by the FDA and fraud investigation by CMS.

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