RFK Jr.'s Department of Health and Human Services is offering $25,000 buyouts to employees at a time when their work is critical.Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/ZUMA
As an outbreak of measles drags on in Texas, and wary officials monitor the bird flu, the Trump administration is reportedly offering $25,000 buyouts to most employees at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
A purported copy of the buyout email, shared by a Rolling Stone reporter on social media, suggests it was sent out Friday night, directing employees to reach out to their HR offices by day’s end next Friday if they want to accept the offer.
The email says the Office of Personnel Management—the same office that sent the “what did you get done this week” email championed by Elon Musk, unleashing chaos across the federal workforce—had approved HHS to offer “voluntary separation incentive payments to a broad population of HHS employees.” OPM’s website also notes that “agencies that are downsizing or restructuring” can offer buyouts up to $25,000 to employees of at least three years who are in good standing. (Thousands of probationary, earlier-career federal workers have already lost their jobs.)
HHS is the vast and highly consequential umbrella agency overseeing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Food and Drug Administration (FDA), among others. The Associated Press reports that workers in all three of these agencies got the email, although it’s unclear how many of HHS’s more than 80,000 overall employees received it. (HHS representatives did not immediately respond to questions from Mother Jones sent on Sunday.)
With anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. at the helm, the ability of HHS to carry out its core functions has become uncertain. Last year, as my colleague Anna Merlan reported at the time, RFK said he would fire and replace 600 people at the NIH on his first day as HHS Secretary. Kennedy did not wind up doing that, but Friday’s email signals the first large-scale effort to drastically reduce the HHS workforce.
The buyout offer comes at a pivotal moment for public health: The CDC is currently monitoring a bird flu outbreak (70 US cases so far, and one death) and a measles outbreak (more than 220 cases, most in Texas and New Mexico, and two deaths). The Republicans’ proposed cuts to Medicaid could affect many of the 72 million low-income, elderly, and disabled people who rely on it for coverage. Medicaid, the nation’s largest health insurance program, is administered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which is also part of HHS. (Trump has nominated celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz to run it.)
Logic, though, has never stopped Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency from seeking to cull federal workers who are tackling problems and providing crucial services to Americans. As I reported on Friday, DOGE is pursuing massive cuts to the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the midst of a housing affordability crisis and record homelessness.
HHS workers, at the very least, will have no shortage of colleagues to commiserate with.
Are you an HHS employee? If so, Mother Jones wants to hear about how you are reacting to the buyout offer and how it will affect the work of you and your colleagues. Share your thoughts with us here and one of our reporters may reach out to you to learn more.
