Another round of federal workers are bracing to be fired again after a pair of court orders this week.ZUMA
On Wednesday, S.W., an award-winning probationary worker at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), spent the day crying in bed.
S.W., who is being identified by her initials due to fear of retaliation for speaking out, is one of more than 24,000 federal probationary employees, those who have been in their jobs for a year or two or less, who were fired en masse on Valentine’s Day as part of Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)’s purge of federal workers. A month later, in mid-March, she and thousands of other probationary workers were reinstated following a court order. For S.W., who said she is five months pregnant and her family’s breadwinner, getting that news felt like a win. “I felt so happy, I was on top of the world,”
Her hope was dashed Wednesday, when an appeals court allowed the Trump administration to resume terminations of probationary workers. It was one of two court rulings this week that allowed the firings of federal probationary workers to proceed, along with a Tuesday decision from the Supreme Court in which a majority of the justices ruled that the nonprofit organizations fighting the firings lacked standing to sue over them.
After getting the news, S.W. felt herself slipping back into the depression that she fell into after initially being fired in February. “This week, I feel like I’m failing my child,” she said, referring to her pregnancy. “Her mom is not emotionally in a good place.”
The recent court rulings have thrown the future employment of this portion of the federal workforce into question. Six probationary employees who work at four different federal agencies told Mother Jones the recent chaos has left them stressed and anxious.
One probationary HUD worker likened the government’s changing directives to a breakup with someone who keeps coming back: “It’s emotionally very turbulent,” he said. It’s also “the ultimate irony” for a government allegedly obsessed with reducing its bottom line, he added. “I think they have saddled themselves—and particularly agencies—with the burden of paying people who aren’t actually contributing to their mission and with years of litigation and administrative burdens.”
S.W. agrees. “I have been getting paid to do nothing,” she told me. “I don’t know how efficient it is to have thousands of people getting paid to sit around.” Spokespeople for the White House and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which administered the first round of “fork in the road” buyouts, did not respond to questions for this story.
The firings of previously reinstated probationary workers have reportedly already begun after the courts gave the green light this week.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), housed within the Department of Commerce, had promptly begun firing previously reinstated probationary workers. One of them, Mike Garza, an IT specialist at NOAA, told Mother Jones on Friday morning that he worries about finding another job and fears will not be paid for the current pay period, since some of NOAA’s probationary workers did not get full back pay for the month-long period between February and March when they lost their jobs. Garza said he is still waiting on approximately $1,600 from that time period.
“I get angry, I get sad, I get depressed about the country being taken apart,” Garza said. “I’m trying to keep it together, but it’s really hard, to be honest.”
A spokesperson for NOAA did not immediately respond to questions.
“Probies,” as they’re known on Reddit, at other agencies are bracing for the same fate. “It’s essentially a whiplash situation,” a probationary worker at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) told me.
While they wait, many “probies” are weighing whether or not to take the second round of “fork in the road” buyouts that more than a half dozen agencies reportedly offered last week. Two of the three HUD workers I spoke to said they plan to take it. But doing so will bring its own set of sacrifices. Those who accept it will likely forfeit their ability to take legal action against their agencies, according to one of the law firms representing probationary employees in a class action lawsuit contesting their terminations. Legal action is one of the only avenues left for probationary workers to contest their firings, given that they have more limited rights to appeal them than other federal workers do.
Other “probies” do not trust the government will follow through on the offer they are promising. “I am not relying on the federal government at all to come through with what they say,” said Claire Bergstresser, a probationary worker in HUD’s Office of Fair Housing, who added that she does not plan to take the buyout. Indeed, experts have questioned whether the offer is legally sound.
HUD workers have good reason to doubt the government’s word: HUD “probies” also did not receive back pay for the period between mid-February, when they were terminated, and mid-March, when they were reinstated and placed on administrative leave following a court order. The three HUD employees I spoke to recounted losing thousands in pay during that month, ranging from $4,000 to more than $12,000. When HUD officials reinstated the approximately 300 fired “probies” in mid-March, they urged them to cancel any unemployment insurance claims they filed with their states—without clarifying that the agency would not be paying them for the prior month of missed work. They did not explain that detail until more than a week later, according to internal emails sent to HUD employees and reviewed by Mother Jones. Spokespeople for HUD did not respond to questions from Mother Jones.
Some “probies” never got a second buyout offer. S.W. and three other HHS employees said the agency has yet to send out a second round of offers. That may be because HHS fired 10,000 people last week, and eliminated 10,000 more through the first round of buyouts and voluntary retirement offers. Spokespeople for HHS did not respond to questions from Mother Jones.
The probationary workers say that ultimately, it’s Americans who will pay the price of their job losses. One worked on a grant program that develops affordable housing, which will likely be in even shorter supply in light of the Trump administration’s reported plans to terminate half the housing agency’s workforce overall. “Grantees—people on the ground who are building the housing and implementing the programs—are basically going to be left without guidance, support, and advocates at the federal level to help make sure they’re getting the money on time and that they have proper guidance on how to spend the money in the most effective ways,” the HUD worker said.
The “probie” purge will also be a loss for the future of the federal workforce, experts say. Caitlin Lewis, executive director of Civic Match, a platform that matches federal workers with jobs in state and local government, said that while the company does not ask about candidates’ probationary status, more than 9 percent of federal workers who use its services have between one to three years of relevant work experience, indicating they are likely probationary employees. “Young workers go into public service because it’s their dream career, so these layoffs can feel particularly soul-crushing,” Lewis said. “It’s incumbent on us to keep them in public service because their enthusiasm and passion can translate into fulfilling careers where they’ve made a real difference in their communities long-term.”
The GSA worker agrees: “They fired their next generation of federal employees and they’re going to find out the hard way that we were valuable. Nobody works harder than a probationary employee.”
S.W. is trying to stay calm in the midst of uncertainty—at the very least, for the sake of her pregnancy. She knows that chronic stress can lead to a low birthweight and potential developmental delays for her future child.
But trying to stay calm is easier said than done. “I could get an email at any moment that says, ‘you’re terminated.’” If that happened, she would also lose the insurance her family relies on and that she uses to access therapy, which helps her manage her depression, she said.
For now, she is holding out hope she will eventually get to go back to work. “I felt like it was meaningful work and that was very important to me,” S.W. said. “You want to wake up and love what you do, and that’s what I had.”
Update, April 11: This story was updated with details about the back pay Garza says he received.
