Thousands Of Federal Workers Fired As Government Shutdown Continues

By Benjamin J. Hulac | Washington Correspondent For the NJ Spotlight News

WASHINGTON — After the Trump administration laid off thousands of federal workers and threatened more cuts, lawmakers in Congress appeared no closer to reaching a deal to fund day-to-day operations of the federal government.

In sweeping layoffs Friday and over the weekend, the administration said it had or would soon dismiss more than 4,000 federal workers at a minimum of seven agencies, according to a White House budget official’s court declaration.

Administration officials said workers had been laid off through “reduction in force” (RIF) notices, and that more RIFs will likely occur. Labor unions have filed a federal lawsuit against the administration’s dismissals.

New Jersey’s congressional delegation in Washington has split its votes on ending the shutdown along party lines, with the state’s three Republicans voting for their party’s short-term bill to open the government and Democrats unwavering in their demands for more healthcare funding.

The Friday dismissals included 1,446 at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, 1,100 to 1,200 at health and human services, 466 at education and 442 at housing and urban development. Other affected federal agencies include the departments of commerce, energy and homeland security and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Statewide figures show about 22,700 people were employed as federal workers in New Jersey as of September 2024, though the number of hired workers is likely significantly lower after Trump administration layoffs and buyouts.

As the U.S. government shutdown lumbered into its third week without an end in sight, the tactic of mass layoffs have not moved Democratic lawmakers toward negotiating a bill to reopen the government, as Republicans and the administration had hoped.

Nor has the Democrats’ push to reverse cuts to Medicaid — the federal health insurance system for low-income or disabled Americans — and extend tax subsidies before the end of the year for the state-run health exchanges created under the 2010 law commonly called Obamacare.

“This is a difficult moment for American families, and in New Jersey our message and my mandate is clear,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) said Saturday, following a town hall event of his. “Our communities know they deserve better than what Republicans are offering them today, and we won’t back down from this fight.”

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he does not feel an urgency to end the shutdown because it’s a political winner for him. In the public eye, Democrats are “getting killed,” Trump said in the Cabinet Room. Trump also said he would move to the most “egregious socialist, semi-communist” government programs before the end of the week.

Last week Trump said, “we’re only going to cut Democrat programs” if the shutdown continues. “We’ll give them a little taste of their own medicine,” he said.

With minimal public signs of a legislative breakthrough, Capitol Hill was far quieter Tuesday than a typical weekday, with restaurants closed, staffers in casual clothing and security checkpoints blocked off. Lawmakers and congressional staffers have said they are looking to paychecks and potential “sickouts” as tipping points to end the shutdown.

Military personnel are scheduled to get a paycheck Wednesday, but it’s unclear if and how that will happen. Over the weekend, Trump ordered the Pentagon to find money to cover lost pay for troops.

Another telling signal may come from transportation employees, including at Newark Liberty International Airport. Six years ago, transportation workers’ decisions to stay home after weeks without pay, in particular airport employees across the country, were widely credited with bringing the end to the 35-day shutdown in 2018 and 2019.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson, the Louisiana Republican who sets the schedule of the House, on Monday predicted the current shutdown could set a record.

Adding that he “won’t negotiate” with Democrats over their health policy demands, Johnson said, “We’re barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history.”

In a court case challenging the federal layoffs, Thomas A. Huddleston, advocacy director for the American Federation of Government Employees, said the layoffs at the HHS were not final and could include workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The labor union represents about 800,000 federal workers nationwide,

In court papers, Huddleston said he learned that “human resources staff at the CDC has been taken off of furlough status and have been called back to work, and will be working through the weekend, to prepare and send out RIF notices.”

The shutdown has left about 750,000 federal workers furloughed each day and costs $400 million every day, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan agency that advises Congress on economic policy and based those figures on the previous federal shutdown.