WASHINGTON — Since the second Trump administration began, a cloud of uncertainty has hung over the federal workforce — including tens of thousands of workers in New Jersey, clustered in large pockets at military bases and airports — as they have been laid off, frequently reinstated to their old posts and then targeted for layoffs again.
Compounding the waves of layoffs and buyouts is the ongoing shutdown of the federal government, now nearly a month long. The shutdown threatens food and medical care for the public and is being used by the White House as a pretext to dismiss tens of thousands of workers.
In mid-October, the Trump administration dismissed thousands of workers across seven agencies through “reduction in force” notices, known as RIFs, and more dismissals are expected. White House budget director Russ Vought has said federal layoffs during the shutdown will be “north of 10,000,” while court records the Interior Department filed last week showed the agency plans to cut more than 2,000 jobs, including at the Cape May national wildlife refuge.
In a federal lawsuit with national stakes, labor unions sued in San Francisco to block sweeping layoffs, and the judge in the case, Susan Illston, a Clinton appointee the U.S. Senate confirmed by voice vote, granted a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration.
But court records from that case and others, plus interviews NJ Spotlight News conducted with current and federal workers, paint a grim picture of the federal labor landscape, where burned-out workers have been stressed out for months for fear of being fired. Being forced to work without pay due to the shutdown has pushed staffers to their breaking points, workers said.
“After spending 19 years working at HUD, it has been upsetting to be treated this way” — LaMarla Stevens
For much of the year, Mayra Medrano has worried about losing her job as a program analyst at the Commerce Department.
“I have been so stressed that I have been unable to eat, and in or around July or August, I fainted,” said Medrano, who lost her job in April in a round of mass layoffs by the Trump administration. Though she got her job back, she now faces a new December layoff date. “I am planning to forgo paying my student loans and to seek support from a food pantry so I can try and keep my food and shelter,” Medrano said.
Overwhelmed from financial stress, Dorothy Roper, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention information-technology staffer with decades of experience, had a panic attack Oct. 18. “I felt as though I could not breathe, and I had to use my inhaler to try and calm down,” Roper said.
LaMarla Stevens, who works at the housing counseling office within Housing and Urban Development, hasn’t been able to access information about her health insurance, severance or backpay because the U.S. government is closed. “Without this information, I feel like I’m in a state of limbo with no idea how to move forward,” Stevens said. “After spending 19 years working at HUD, it has been upsetting to be treated this way.”
Those sorts of stories from Medrano, Roper and Stevens, all federal workers who have submitted court declarations in support of that court case to block Trump administration layoffs, are common.
“A lot of our employees are still living check to check,” a Department of Homeland Security employee said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News, speaking anonymously for fear of retaliation from the Trump administration.
“This is extremely depressing,” the employee said, adding that many colleagues want access to mental health programs. “But a lot of the available programs or resources are very limited because of the shutdown.”
Geddes Scott, president of the American Federation of Government Employees NY/NJ VA Council 246, a labor union that represents about 4,500 employees within the Veterans Administration across New York and New Jersey, said the shutdown is rendering lasting damage.
“The current government shutdown is scarring the federal workforce,” Scott said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News, describing the working conditions like “being starved for air.”
A former VA nurse who worked for decades as a federal employee, including at the St. Albans VA Medical Center in Queens, N.Y., Scott said federal workers are frightened to criticize managers or the administration for fear they’ll be punished.
“Those who stay, they can’t speak,” Scott said. “You’re at the leisure of the agency.” He retired in late 2024.
The Community FoodBank of New Jersey, which is present in 11 of New Jersey’s 21 counties, recently received a request for an emergency distribution of food for Transportation Security Administration staff, airport security workers, during the shutdown.
“Hunger is ubiquitous across the state,” Adele LaTourette, assistant vice president of policy and advocacy at the food bank, said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News. “We know we have these mass distribution hotspots where people are temporarily without funds,” she said, citing TSA workers at Newark Liberty International airport and personnel at Picatinny Arsenal in Morris County.
The majority of people who come to food banks have jobs, LaTourette said. “Most of the people who come to food pantries these days, they’re all working people.”
Economic trouble for federal workers trickles into the broader labor market, said Sam Ferraino, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 360, which is headquartered in West Berlin and represents about 12,000 private-sector workers.
Government shutdown: Who gets paid, what gets cutFewer dollars in the pockets of federal workers means less income for workers Ferraino represents. “We’re going to lose that business, so that means our workers’ hours are going to be reduced,” he said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News. Part-time workers in the union are often enrolled in federal safety-net programs, like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or the Women, Infants and Children system, he said.
The shutdown has placed both SNAP and WIC funding in jeopardy. “If they get hurt in any way, that kills us,” he said. “Our people are really struggling right now.”
On Friday, House Republicans canceled votes for the next week entirely — the sixth week in a row the House, which has not voted since Sept. 19, has been out of Washington, D.C.
The longer Congress remains out, the longer people like Christine Grassman, one of three people who administers a Department of Education program established in 1936 to employ blind people to run vending facilities — cafeterias, snack bars, counters and vending machines — will be out of work.
She’s one of more than 1,000 blind people whose work is tied to the program. Her last day will be Dec. 9, according to a termination notice she received. Describing the prospect of losing her job as “terrifying,” Grassman, who lives in Virginia, said she’s had trouble sleeping and dealt with flashbacks and nightmares after learning she could lose her job.
“As a fifty-six-year-old woman who is blind, there are not many employment opportunities available to me,” Grassman wrote in court papers filed last week. “Many of the short-term jobs that others might consider in my position, such as waitressing, rideshare driving, or food delivery, are not available to me.”