Mass federal layoffs deliver a gutting one-two punch to America's veterans

NBC News

21-02-2025

President Donald Trump's sweeping efforts to purge the federal workforce have dealt a striking one-two punch to an already largely vulnerable population: America's veterans.
Besides scrambling for a new way to make a living, former service members who lost their government jobs are bracing for the potential impact the mass terminations may have on their personal lives after the Department of Veterans Affairs dismissed more than 1,000 people who help provide services to them.
'I'm worried about wait times,' said a disabled Army veteran, who was let go from her VA job last week. 'If there's not enough staff, from the clerks on up to the providers, it delays your time to be able to be seen, whether it's an emergency or nonemergency.'
The layoffs could have cascading effects on veteran unemployment and put millions of veterans at risk of having their benefits disrupted, said Allison Jaslow, an Iraq War veteran who leads the nonprofit Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.
It's a double whammy to a group of people who researchers say experience mental health issues at disproportionate rates compared with their civilian counterparts and who face unique service-related challenges, including difficulty adjusting to civilian life and employment barriers.
'You're talking about a population of Americans who have really taken a beating.'
Allison Jaslow, veterans advocate
Post-9/11 veterans and service members, in particular, are recovering from 20 years of war, during which many of them deployed multiple times and without a draft.
'It's a population that's already, in many cases, carried a significant burden on behalf of our country and also at the hands of political decision-makers,' Jaslow said. 'You're talking about a population of Americans who have really taken a beating.'
The federal government is the single largest employer of veterans in the country, said Randy Erwin, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, a union that represents 110,000 federal employees.
Nearly 30% of the more than 2.2 million federal employees are veterans, he said. More than half of those veterans are disabled, according to the latest publicly available data by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
Erwin fears nearly a half-million veterans could go jobless under Trump's stated cost-cutting plan to gut the federal workforce and drastically cut federal spending — and he worries their struggles won't end there.
Last week, the VA announced it had dismissed more than 1,000 employees as part of Trump's plan. The agency, which previously had more than 479,000 people on its payroll, said the cuts would allow more than $98 million each year to be redirected toward health care, benefits and services for veterans.
In a statement, VA Secretary Doug Collins said the personnel changes 'will not negatively impact VA health care, benefits or beneficiaries.'
The layoffs did not hit responders with the Veterans Crisis Line, the agency's suicide hotline, a VA spokesperson told NBC News on Thursday. The VA said 'mission-critical' positions were exempt from the reductions.
'This was a tough decision,' Collins said, 'but ultimately it's the right call to better support the Veterans, families, caregivers, and survivors the department exists to serve.'
Outrage from lawmakers, as chaos ensues
In a letter Wednesday, dozens of Democratic senators laid out several ways they say the terminations have already harmed veterans, as they urged Collins to immediately reinstate those who were fired last week, citing critical staffing shortages and an increased demand for services.
The lawmakers said openings for new clinics have been delayed, while service lines at VA hospitals and clinics have been halted, and beds and operating rooms at VA facilities have been suspended.
In a statement, however, Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., who chairs the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, said he was 'disappointed' to see his Democratic colleagues 'fearmonger veterans and their families about phantom cuts to benefits and services.'
'I take Secretary Collins at his word when he says there is no impact to the delivery of care, benefits, and services for veterans with this plan,' Bost said.
Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., who chairs the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, did not immediately return a request for comment.
The widespread layoffs, the Democratic senators said, have sowed unnecessary chaos at the VA.
'Not only will this latest action put veterans' care and benefits at risk, but it further confuses, demoralizes, and threatens a VA workforce we need to fulfill our nation's sacred promise to our veterans and their families who have already sacrificed so much,' the senators wrote.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said a 'substantive' number of terminated VA employees were veterans and military spouses.
Marine veteran Andrew Lennox, 35, had been working for the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System in Michigan for about two months before he was laid off through an email on Feb. 13.
'These aren't customers. These are patients. These are veterans.'
Andrew Lennox, former va employee
'I checked my government phone, and I was like, I got fired,' he said, adding that he burst out laughing in disbelief.
Lennox said he had felt alone after leaving the military. But, he said, the job gave him a new sense of community, full of people he understood and felt understood by.
'It was something that made me proud,' he said. 'I was being able to serve again.'
Now, Lennox worries about the long-term or permanent effects Trump's policy changes will have.
'These are very complex and fragile institutions that if you try and slash away, it grinds to a halt,' he said. 'These aren't customers. These are patients. These are veterans.'
'You're gonna break something that we can't fix,' he added.
The disabled Army veteran, who requested anonymity as she attempts to reverse her termination, said she keeps in touch with close colleagues. 'Everybody's on edge,' she said, 'not knowing what's going to happen from day to day.'
George Buchanan, an Army veteran who still works for the Veterans Benefits Administration in New York City, said confusion sparked by a sea of personnel changes has gone mainly unaddressed in his office.
'We didn't have any big meetings about it, although obviously everyone was asking about it,' he said.
Buchanan said fewer workers will likely lead to longer lags in disability compensation cases.
'I would worry because they're getting rid of so many people,' he said. 'It's going to greatly delay appeals and cases being decided.'
Erwin, the union president, warned the terminations would have ripple effects on the remaining employees of an agency that serves more than 9 million people.
'There will be no mercy for the Department of Veterans Affairs,' he said.
A VA researcher in the northwest said she has already begun to feel the impact of the fallout.
Her already thinned-out department has turned into a 'skeleton crew,' she said, which has halted studies on the results of burn pits, suicide prevention, oncology and infectious disease.
'We can't effectively proceed with the research any longer,' said the worker, who spoke to NBC News on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.
The cancer researcher, who was still employed as of Friday, worried how further cuts would hinder her department, which helps hundreds of late-stage oncology patients through grant-funded interventional studies involving new therapies and drugs.
'I don't even mean to be dramatic, but it's a life-or-death situation for these patients when we're their last hope,' she said. 'It's kind of hard to wrap your head around.'