As he marked one year since being sworn into office, President Donald Trump on Tuesday touted the actions of his administration — including praising the major reductions to the federal workforce throughout 2025.

“I don’t want to cut people, but when you cut them and they go out and get a better job, I like to cut them,” Trump said during a nearly two-hour press briefing, while also stating his administration “slashed tremendous numbers of people off the federal payroll.”

The White House on Tuesday also released a list of “365 wins” over the last year, commending the administration’s efforts to ensure a “merit-based” federal workforce. The list includes federal workforce actions overhauling the probationary period; eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion across government; requiring employees to work on-site full-time; slashing federal jobs; and limiting agencies to one new hire for every four employees who exit the civil service.

“I say, get rid of everybody that’s unnecessary, because that’s the way you make America great again,” Trump said. “When you have all these jobs where people are sitting around doing nothing and they get a lot of money from the government, it’s no good.”

But good government groups such as the Partnership for Public Service tell a much different story of the administration’s impact on the federal workforce. Max Stier, the Partnership’s president and CEO, described 2025 as “the most significant reduction in federal government capacity that we’ve ever experienced in our history.”

“And that reduction in capacity is best represented in our most important asset: our federal workforce,” Stier told reporters on a press call last week.

Governmentwide, federal workforce data shows that about 320,000 federal employees left government during 2025, while just tens of thousands joined the civil service. The Office of Personnel Management reported a net loss of about 220,000 federal employees over the course of the year.

“It tells a disturbing story about who we’ve lost in our government and what is actually happening to the workforce,” Stier said. “But it doesn’t tell you anything about what is truly most fundamental — their morale and what they think about what’s happening right now.”

The Partnership, a non-profit organization that advocates for non-partisan, “good government” reforms, released a report on Tuesday, noting that the Trump administration’s actions over the last year created “confusion, distrust and stress within the federal workforce.”

“There were large-scale layoffs of employees, cuts to government programs and the ending of many grants, altering how the government does — or does not — serve the public and the outcomes it can achieve,” the report states. “Not only did the government lose invaluable expertise, it became less responsive to public needs and less prepared to keep Americans safe.”

“It is impossible to gain a full picture of the layoffs and their impact,” the Partnership added. “The administration has provided few specifics about what positions have been eliminated and which personnel have been laid off or incentivized to resign.”

The Partnership’s report also detailed the specific impacts of federal workforce losses over the last year, including effects at agencies like the IRS, Social Security Administration, Department of Health and Human Services, FEMA and many others.

As a result of the governmentwide staffing cuts, the Partnership argued, agencies are less prepared to deliver disaster assistance during emergencies, and less efficient in administering crucial government programs, leading to delays in basic services and increased wait times.

By contrast, OPM Director Scott Kupor has argued that the Trump administration’s federal workforce overhauls will lead to better employee accountability, merit and performance across government. Kupor also touted the loss of one-third of OPM’s internal workforce during 2025, while saying the agency’s service delivery improved.

“President Trump was clear from day one: The federal workforce must be accountable, performance-driven and focused on serving the American people,” Kupor said in a Dec. 31 press release. “This year, OPM delivered on that vision — modernizing government operations, rewarding excellence and putting taxpayers first.”

But Rob Shriver, director of the Civil Service Strong program at Democracy Forward, questioned the Trump administration’s workforce reductions, saying there are no forward-looking plans for continuing to effectively deliver services after the cuts.

“The singular focus on headcount reduction as a blunt instrument reveals that DOGE was never about efficiency,” Shriver, a former acting director of OPM during the Biden administration, said in commentary on Tuesday. “It was about retribution and stifling dissent by intimidating federal workers into leaving their jobs or, if they decided to stay, intimidating them into not questioning their political leaders.”

At the same time, information on the federal workforce’s perspective over the course of 2025 will likely be limited. After months of postponing, OPM last year opted to cancel the 2025 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. In an attempt to fill the data gap, the Partnership conducted its own federal workforce survey.

The results of the Partnership’s survey are expected to be released in March. But Partnership officials have said it will still be difficult as an external organization to replicate the depth of data OPM can attain through FEVS.

Going forward, the Trump administration is looking to make further changes for the federal workforce, including overhauls to the probationary period and federal hiring processes, as well as performance management and senior executive development.

OPM’s Kupor said the upcoming changes will make government “leaner,” while making federal employees more results-oriented, accountable and efficient.

But some painted a darker picture for federal employees throughout 2026.

“The harms caused by these cuts have already begun to play out, and we’ll see more and more of that in 2026, when the impacts of the thoughtless workforce cuts are felt more deeply around the country,” Shriver said.

The Trump administration is also expected to soon issue a final rule to implement “Schedule Policy/Career.” The forthcoming regulations will let agencies reclassify career federal employees in “policy-influencing” positions, in effect removing their civil service protections and making them easier to fire at-will.

“The change of our federal government into one that is a loyalist workforce, as opposed to a professional one, is a process that we anticipate moving forward in 2026,” Stier said. “As challenging as 2025 was, I think we can expect even harder days ahead in 2026.”

The post Trump lauds ‘tremendous’ federal workforce cuts. Good government group calls them ‘disturbing.’ first appeared on Federal News Network.

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Congressional appropriators are one step closer to reaching a comprehensive spending deal for the rest of the fiscal year before a stopgap spending bill expires at the end of the month.

Members of the House and Senate appropriations committees released a four-bill “minibus” of fiscal 2026 spending bills on Tuesday.

Congress is roughly halfway to passing a spending plan for the rest of FY 2026. The current continuing resolution expires on Jan. 30.

The latest “minibus” covers annual appropriations for the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation and Housing and Urban Development, as well as some smaller related agencies.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said in a statement that the spending package delivers “results without waste.”

“At a time when many believed completing the FY26 process was out of reach, we’ve shown that challenges are opportunities. It’s time to get it across the finish line,” Cole said.

Here are a few highlights from the spending package:

3.8% pay raise for air traffic controllers

The spending deal would give the Federal Aviation Administration a $1.58 billion budget for fiscal 2026, as well as funding to hire 2,500 new air traffic controllers

The FAA is about 3,500 air traffic controllers short of its staffing goals. Many current air traffic controllers are working six days a week, including mandatory overtime.

As part of this budget plan, the FAA would receive $140 million to implement a 3.8% pay raise for air traffic controllers, as well as supervisors and managers who oversee air traffic.

The Trump administration approved a 3.8% pay raise for federal law enforcement personnel, which went into effect at the start of January. Air traffic controllers were not on the Office of Personnel Management’s list of positions receiving a higher pay raise.

The spending bill states that the 3.8% pay raise “shall be implemented for all such employees only to the extent that the administrator determines, in his sole discretion, that improvements in workforce scheduling, staffing utilization, or other operational efficiencies are achieved that contribute to addressing workforce shortfalls and enhancing aviation safety.”

If the FAA administrator determines these conditions, the pay raise would retroactively go into effect for the first pay period in January 2026.

Spending cuts for a smaller federal workforce

Republican appropriators applauded overall spending cuts in the spending bill that funds the Transportation Department, HUD and related agencies.

GOP lawmakers on the House Appropriations Committee wrote that the spending deal “codified DOGE recommendations to reduce the federal bureaucracy” of Transportation, HUD and related agencies by 29%.

More specifically, GOP lawmakers said the spending package reflects a 24% reduction in HUD staffing achieved partially through layoffs last year.

Lawmakers said a smaller HUD workforce will save $348 million in salaries and related expenses.

Republican appropriators said the spending deal reflects the Transportation Department “right-sizing” its workforce through a 5% staffing reduction, “all without compromising transportation safety.”

President Donald Trump told reporters at a White House press briefing on Monday that his administration “slashed tremendous numbers of people off the federal payroll” during his first year in office.

OPM data shows over 300,000 federal employees left government last year. That’s about a net loss of 220,000 employees, when accounting for new hires.

Trump said downsizing the federal workforce was necessary, because “they had 10 people for every job,” and that terminated federal employees have moved on to higher-paying jobs in the private sector.

“I don’t feel badly, because they’re getting private sector jobs, and they’re getting sometimes twice as much money, three times as much money,” Trump said. “They’re getting factory jobs, they’re getting much better jobs and much higher pay.”

Higher HHS spending, proposed cuts rejected

The spending bill gives the Department of Health and Human Services $116.8 billion in discretionary spending — a $210 million increase in discretionary spending. By contrast, the Trump administration proposed a nearly 20% cut to HHS discretionary spending this year.

The congressional spending deal rejects the administration’s calls for deep cuts within HHS. The administration sought a 50% spending cut for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Instead, the compromise reached by lawmakers essentially keeps CDC funded at current levels, and includes funding increases for some of its pandemic preparedness programs.

The spending package would give $7.4 billion to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) a $65 million increase over current funding levels.

The bigger budget reflects increased spending to address a rise in opioid overdoses, especially from fentanyl, as well as boosts to substance abuse disorder prevention and mental health services.

Lawmakers rejected a 15% cut to SAMHSA funding proposed by the Trump administration. The spending deal also rejects the administration’s plan to reorganize SAMHSA into the Administration for a Healthy America (AHA), a new office envisioned by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Democrats on the appropriations committees said the spending deal ensures SAMHSA remains its “own, independent agency to help ensure substance use and mental health remain a priority at HHS” and “includes new guardrails to ensure SAMHSA funds are allocated as intended.”

NPR reported last week that HHS briefly terminated $2 billion in addiction and mental health grants, but quickly walked back those cuts.

Education Department budget remains intact

Lawmakers are largely rejecting the administration’s proposal to dismantle the Education Department, and move many of its functions to other federal agencies.

The spending bill gives the department $79 billion in discretionary spending — a roughly flat budget compared to current spending levels.

The Trump administration proposed cutting the Education Department by $12 billion, or about 15% of its current discretionary budget.

The Education Department has already signed six interagency agreements to transfer some of its programs and employees to HHS and the departments of Labor, Interior and State.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon told employees last November that the department is soft-launching plans to reassign its work to other parts of the federal government, before calling on Congress to permanently shutter the agency.

Senate Appropriations Committee Vice President Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said in a statement that “Congress will not abolish the Department of Education, and the people’s representatives will have the final say on how taxpayer dollars get spent.”

Budget boost for Social Security

The Social Security Administration would see a higher budget under this spending plan.

Lawmakers propose giving SSA $15 billion for its administrative budget in fiscal 2026 — a $554 million increase compared to current spending levels.

Lawmakers from both parties agreed that the funding will help the agency improve customer service for the public. Democratic appropriators urged SSA to use these increased funds to resume hiring.

SSA currently has about 50,000 employees in total, according to the latest data from the Office of Personnel Management. The agency lost more than 7,000 employees through voluntary incentives last year. It also relocated many of its employees from its headquarters and regional offices to field offices.

SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano told staff at an all-hands meeting last week that the agency is continuing to hire, according to several employees in attendance. Those employees, however, said the agency still faces a hiring freeze.

Labor Dept. federal contractor watchdog spared from elimination

The spending bill provides $13.7 billion in discretionary spending to the Labor Department — a slight increase compared to its current $13.5 billion discretionary budget.

The department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs would receive a $101 million budget, about a 9% cut to current spending levels. OFCCP ensures federal contractors aren’t discriminating against their employees.

OFCCP, however, would remain largely intact, after the Trump administration proposed major staffing cuts. An earlier funding proposal from House Republicans also proposed fully eliminating OFCCP.

The agency sent layoff notices to 90% of its staff, but rescinded those layoffs last August. Instead of being reinstated to their jobs at OFCCP, the agency said impacted employees would be “reassigned to a new position” at the Labor Department.

Small agencies marked for closure stay open

The spending bill also includes funding for small, independent agencies marked for elimination by an executive order last year.

Lawmakers propose giving the Institute of Museum and Library Services a $292 million budget — a $3 million cut compared to current spending levels.  The spending bill also proposes $3 million in funding for the Interagency Council on Homelessness.

President Trump signed an executive order last March, eliminating these agencies and five others “to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.”

A federal judge in Rhode Island ordered a permanent injunction last November, putting the Trump administration’s plans to shutter these small agencies on hold.

House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said in a statement that the funding package “continues Congress’s forceful rejection of extreme cuts to federal programs proposed by the Trump administration.”

“Where the White House attempted to eliminate entire programs, we chose to increase their funding. Where the administration proposed slashing resources, we chose to sustain funding at current levels,” DeLauro said.

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The revelation comes as part of a series of corrections in a legal case over DOGE’s access to Social Security Administration data.

More than half of the Social Security Administration’s frontline employees are earning less than what’s necessary to afford a basic standard of living in their communities, according to a new report.

Released Wednesday by the Strategic Organizing Center, a research partner for the American Federation of Government Employees, the report found 54% of the 36,000 frontline SSA employees represented by AFGE were paid less than a living wage for their geographic region. A living wage is the minimum income needed for an individual to afford the minimum standard of living in their community.

The report compares each employee’s reported pay rate on the General Schedule pay scale against the estimated living wage rate for the employee’s location, as tracked by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Living Wage Institute.

In a survey of more than 800 current SSA employees, 17% of respondents with over 20 years on the job told SOC they are working a second job. Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents said they were struggling to provide at least one necessity for their families, and that the recent government shutdown only deepened their financial problems.

AFGE Local 2014 President Shaunellia Ferguson, who represents teleservice center workers in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, said many of her members are taking second jobs, especially those who are single parents.

“They’re overworked, they’re stressed, they’re underpaid. You probably have one claims representative doing the work of three people,” Ferguson said.

Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents said they have at least one child or dependent. Of those, nearly 75% of respondents said they were the primary income earners in their households.

Most SSA employees in the survey said that amid these workforce challenges, the agency is unable to keep up with the needs of beneficiaries.

About 70% of surveyed employees said service speed for the public has decreased, and 65% said the quality of service they provide has deteriorated.

“The public is not getting world-class customer service, and that’s what Social Security prided itself on in the past. That’s not happening,” Ferguson said.

Employee satisfaction has been an ongoing issue for SSA. It received the lowest employee engagement and satisfaction scores of all large agencies between 2024 and 2022, according to the Partnership for Public Service’s Best Places to Work in the Federal Workforce.

An SSA spokesperson said in a statement that, under the leadership of Commissioner Frank Bisignano, “SSA is taking action to improve workplace satisfaction, support professional development, and enhance communication across all levels of the organization.”

“The commissioner recognizes the importance of fostering a positive work environment and is dedicated to making meaningful progress in response to employee feedback,” the spokesperson said.

An inspector general report last month found that SSA served 68 million callers in fiscal 2025, a 65% increase compared to the prior year. However, about 25 million calls ended without the caller receiving service — either because the caller hung up and did not complete the call, or because the phone system could not connect callers to an employee. The agency’s wait time metrics don’t include these abandoned calls or callers who received a busy message.

“The wait time is through the roof. I know data might be out there that says something different, but that’s not true. There’s not enough staffing to cover those phone calls. We need people,” Ferguson said.

In a separate report last year, the SOC estimated there are approximately 4,000 Social Security beneficiaries for every agency employee working in field offices.

SSA currently has about 50,000 employees in total, according to the latest data from the Office of Personnel Management. The agency lost more than 7,000 employees through voluntary incentives last year. It also relocated many of its employees from its headquarters and regional offices to field offices.

Bisignano told staff at an all-hands meeting on Monday that SSA is continuing to hire, according to several employees in attendance. Those employees, however, said the agency still faces a hiring freeze. A field office manager told Federal News Network that “I have been given zero authority to hire.”

The SSA spokesperson said that “Commissioner Bisignano has pledged to have the right level of staffing to operate at peak efficiency and deliver best-in-class customer service to the American people.

“Through technology enhancements and strategic staffing decisions, SSA is serving more Americans at quicker speeds in field offices and on the phone,” the spokesperson said.

The Trump administration kept a governmentwide hiring freeze in place through mid-October last year. In a follow-up executive order, the administration required agencies to submit annual staffing plans for the coming year, subject to review and approval by the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management and Budget. Until OMB and OPM approve those staffing plans, are limited to hiring one new employee for every four employees who leave.

A second SSA employee told Federal News Network that SSA is planning to install self-service kiosks in field offices, to reduce the demand on frontline staff to provide in-person help to beneficiaries.

According to SOC’s research, a majority of SSA employees in 25 states are paid less than a living wage — especially across New England and the West Coast. The study shows that at least 75% of SSA employees in Hawaii, New Mexico, California, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut earn less than a living wage.

During the 43-day government shutdown last fall, the vast majority of SSA employees were designated as “excepted” staff, and continued to show up to work without pay. Many federal employees have missed two full paychecks during the shutdown, and received one partial paycheck.

More than 80% of survey respondents said they struggled to pay for basic expenses, including housing, food and transportation during the recent government shutdown.

By November 2025, SSA managers told agency leadership that some field office employees working without pay asked to be furloughed for the remainder of the government shutdown, as they could no longer afford the daily commuting costs. Agency leadership didn’t allow employees facing financial hardship to telework during the shutdown.

One day during the government shutdown, two of SSA’s 1,250 field offices closed early because of short-staffing. Just before the shutdown ended, SSA leadership considered whether to put more in-person services on hold.

The release of SOC’s report coincides with a “national day of action” organized by AFGE. The union and SSA employees will hold rallies across the country to call on Congress and the Trump administration to increase funding and staffing for the agency.

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The Social Security Administration is rolling out nationwide systems in the coming months that will impact how the agency schedules appointments for initial claims and triages its workload to employees.

SSA employees told Federal News Network that they’re used to processing claims submitted locally, but will soon tackle a nationwide inventory of cases.

Employees are wary that these changes will introduce more complexity to their workloads, as well as a higher risk of overpayments that SSA would have to claw back.

“Someone who applies in California could be speaking to an SSA rep in Maine,” one SSA employee said.

SSA is rolling out a National Appointment Scheduling Calendar (NASC) and National Workload Management (NWLM) for all field operations, digital services, and processing centers. Both systems will launch on March 7.

According to a Dec. 19 memo obtained by Federal News Network, the NASC will replace SSA’s current system for scheduling initial claims appointments, as well as local field office calendars.

SSA employees will use the NASC to schedule all initial claims appointments, and will also allow the public to self-schedule initial claims appointments.

The National Workload Management system will serve as the agency’s central workload management system. According to the memo, the system will distribute work to employees nationwide based on their “skillset, knowledge, and availability.”

“Employees will be assigned work by the NWLM based on the skillsets that they have, as determined by management. As a normal part of their routine duties, employees will be assigned to the NWLM and will be expected to use the tool to receive their workload assignments,” the memo states.

These systems will impact all employees in SSA field offices, digital services and processing centers.

“Both the NASC and NWLM are necessary to modernize our appointment systems and to provide a more balanced and consistent experience for both technicians and customers,” the memo states.

Richard Couture, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Council 215, said the union received notice of these changes, and that negotiations will soon begin.

A second SSA employee told Federal News Network that the purpose of these changes is to “smooth over” staffing shortages. The agency lost about 7,000 employees through voluntary incentives last year. It also relocated many of its employees from its headquarters and regional offices to field offices.

The employees said these upcoming changes would give staff “much less prep time” to handle a nationwide pool of cases.

“We are used to taking claims only for people in our area, so we expect to run into problems,” the second SSA employee said.

State laws introduce another layer of complexity to these cases. Some states, for example, have a higher income limit for SSA programs like Supplemental Security Income.

SSA employees outside Alaska aren’t familiar with how to treat annual payments adult residents receive from the state government based on oil revenue. Those payments from the Permanent Fund Dividend count as income to SSA programs like Social Security Income, and could potentially reduce benefits.

Many states offer a supplement to SSI benefits to help cover living costs for low-income seniors, as well as blind or disabled individuals. Those supplement amounts and eligibility vary state-by-state.

Some states let SSA manage these supplements, resulting in one combined check, while other states process their SSI supplements as a separate payment. Other states don’t offer these SSI supplements.

“We don’t have answers on how we are supposed to handle this,” the second SSA employee said.

The first SSA employee said staff were briefed on these changes this week. The employee said staff submitted multiple requests to management seeking clarification on these points, but were told to “worry about today, not tomorrow.”

Andy Sriubas, SSA’s chief of field operations, told employees in a Nov. 25 memo that the agency is taking steps to centralize more of its work.

“For decades, our ~1,250 field offices have operated as independent ‘mini-SSAs.’ That model no longer serves the public or our people. It prevents true specialization, limits the impact of technology, and produces backlogs we should not sustain,” he wrote.

Sriubas wrote that field offices “will always remain” as the agency’s primary point of contact in in-person services, and field office staff should be able to focus on serving people “face-to-face with empathy, accuracy, and speed.”

“Still too often, a day’s work is not finished in a day – impacting wait times, appointments, and pending items. That is not the level of service the American people deserve, nor is it the standard any of us should accept,” Sriubas wrote.

Sriubas wrote the agency’s website and the national 1-800 number handle “intake tasks well,” but said field operations “must evolve into a truly national system that leverages our full capacity.”

“The future is one SSA: a modern, client-centered agency where people receive service how, when and where they want it — online, by phone, or in person — regardless of their physical location, and every workflow flows to the team best equipped to complete it quickly and correctly,” he wrote.

SSA walks back memo limiting in-person services

In a separate memo, which an SSA spokesperson said has been rescinded, the agency directed field offices to only schedule initial claims over the phone, and to restrict in-person visits.

The memo, dated Dec. 31, directed field office employees to “convert all in-office appointments” scheduled on or after Jan. 6 to telephone appointments, and to “zero out all in-office availability” for appointments scheduled on or after March 9.

“This change prepares field offices and teleservice centers for the upcoming implementation of the National Appointment Scheduling Calendar,” the memo states.

The memo said in-person initial claim appointments would only be scheduled in “limited circumstances” when an appointment over the phone isn’t possible. Examples include an individual requiring a sign-language interpreter or who doesn’t have access to a phone.

“Only field office management may decide if an in-office appointment is appropriate; technicians must obtain permission from local management prior to scheduling the appointment,” the memo states.

According to this memo, the NASC will allow SSA to schedule initial claim appointments “based on national capacity, rather than local field office calendars.”

“Under NASC, [initial claim] appointments will be scheduled using available technician capacity nationwide, including first available appointment times across all U.S. time zones,” the memo states. “This shift supports a more consistent and efficient approach to IC scheduling and expands access by allowing the public to self-schedule IC appointments online.”

An SSA spokesperson told Federal News Network that “erroneous instructions recently issued have been withdrawn and our employees have been notified.”

The spokesperson said in a statement that the agency is still scheduling in-person appointments for initial claims, “and will continue to provide the public with in-person service at our more than 1,200 field offices nationwide.”

“We remain committed to ensuring that all individuals have access to the services they need and serving everyone in the way they wish to be served, including the option for in-person assistance,” the spokesperson said.

The second SSA employee, however, told Federal News Network that these plans will proceed, even if the memo outlining these changes has been rescinded.

“They are absolutely going forward with this plan. I expect there could be delays, but they have every intention of making this happen,” the employee said.

SSA is looking to cut visits to its field offices in half this year. NextGov/FCW first reported on SSA’s plans to cut 15 million field office visits this year.

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