The employee of the National Institutes of Health said she knew that things would be difficult for federal workers after Donald Trump was elected. But she never imagined it would be like that.
Axed on research on Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia, the worker is one of the thousands of people who have suddenly lost their job in the federal purge of the Trump administration. The way she was dismissed – in February through a passout notice alleging bad performance, something she said directly was “not true” – made her feel that she “lost hope in humans”.
She said she couldn’t concentrate or meditate, and can barely go to the gymnasium. At the request of her therapist, she made an appointment with a psychiatrist in March after feeling that she was hitting the bottom, “she said.
“I cross hell,” said the employee, who worked at the National Institute for Aging, one of the 27 centers that make up NIH. The worker, like others interviewed for this story, has obtained anonymity due to the fear of professional reprisals.
“I know I’m a mother. I am a woman. But I am also a person who was very happy with his career, “she said. “They took my work and my life with my hands for no reason.”
President Trump and his allies have increasingly denigrated the approximately 2 million people who make up the federal workforce, 80% of whom work outside the Washington region, DC. Trump said The federal workers “destroy this country”, called them “twisted” and “dishonest” and insinuated that they are lazy. “Many of them don’t work at all”, he said earlier this month.
Elon Musk – who is the richest person in the world and whose ministry for government efficiency, created by a Trump decree, infiltrated federal agencies and the mass lance – claimed without proof that there are “a number of people on the pay of the government who died” and others “who are not real people”. During a conference for the Conservatives in February, Musk brandished what he called “the SAW channel for bureaucracy” and said that “Waste is almost everywhere. “”
The layoffs that started in February weigh considerably on the mental health of federal employees. The workers said they felt overwhelmed and demoralized, obtained or envisaged the search for psychiatric care and drugs, and feel anxious to be able to pay invoices or to allow themselves a college for their children.
Federal employees are preparing for more layoffs after agencies were to provide plans this month for large-scale staff discounts. Composing uncertainty: after the judges ruled that certain initial layoffs were illegal, the agencies rehired certain workers and placed others on paid administrative leave. Then Trump on March 20 expressed A memo Give the office of personnel management more power to dismiss people in agencies.
Researchers who study job loss say that these mass layoffs disrupt not only the lives of tens of thousands of federal workers, but will also repercussions on their spouses, their children and their communities.
“I expect it will have lasting impacts on the lives of these people and those around them,” said Jennie brandprofessor of sociology at the UCLA who wrote an article on the Implications for job loss. “We can see this impact on the road.”
Studies have shown that unemployed people live greater anxiety,, depressionAnd risk of suicide. The longer the period of unemployment, the more the effects.
Couples fight more when a person loses a job, and if he is a man, Divorce rates increase.
Children with an unemployed parent are more likely to hurt schoolRepeat a note or give up. This can even affect if they go to university, said Brand. There is an “intergenerational impact of instability,” she said.
And it doesn’t stop there. When people lose their jobs, especially when it is a lot of people at the same time, wealth and resources available in their community are reduced. Children see Fewer models used. While families are forced to move, the stability of the neighborhood is upset. The unemployed often withdraw from social and civic lifeAvoid community gatherings, church or other places where they may have to discuss or explain their loss of employment.
Although obtaining a new job can mitigate some of these problems, it Do not eliminate themSaid Brand.
“It is not as if people have obtained new jobs and then take the activities with which they were involved,” she said. “There is no rapid recovery.”
Reduce cultural standards
The layoffs are reversing a long -standing standard for the public sector – in exchange to earn less money compared to the work of the private sector, people had greater employment of employment and more generous advantages. Now, this is no longer the case, workers said dismissed during the interviews.
The American economy moving to temporary and concert jobs, the landing of a traditional government job was supposed to be “as if you had golden goose,” said Blake AllanProfessor of advisory psychology at the University of Houston who seeks how the quality of work affects people’s lives.
Even federal workers who are still employed are faced with the daily issue of their dismissal. This state of constant insecurity, said Allan, can create chronic stress, which is linked to Anxiety, depression, digestive problems, heart disease and crowd other health problems.
An employee of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, who obtained anonymity to avoid professional reprisals, said that the actions of the administration seemed to be designed to provoke sufficient emotional distress that workers will leave voluntarily. “I have the impression that this ax will always be above my head for as long as I am here and that this administration is there,” said the employee.
Federal workers who have adopted jobs in the private sector above, because they wanted to serve their country can feel particularly emptied to hear Trump and Musk denigrate their waste of waste.
“Work is such a fundamental element of our identity,” said Allan. When it is suddenly lost, “it can be really devastating for your sense of objective and your identity, your sense of social importance, especially when it is in a climate of devaluation of what you do.”
Andrew Hazelton, a scientist in Florida, worked to improve the hurricane forecasts when he was dismissed in February from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The mass shots were carried out “without humanity,” he said. “And it’s really difficult.”
Hazelton has become a federal employee in October, but has worked alongside the Noaa scientists for over eight years, especially as an employee of the University of Miami. He lost his job as part of a purge targeting probationary workers, who lack protection of the public service against layoffs.
His friends have set up a Gofundme crowdfunding page to provide him with a financial cushion, his wife and their four children. Then in March, after an order of a federal judge forcing federal agencies to cancel these layoffs, it was informed that he had been restored on paid administrative leave.
“It has created a lot of instability,” said Hazelton, who is still not allowed to do his job. “We just want to serve the public and get our forecasts and data there to help people make decisions, whatever politics.”
Collateral health coverage
In addition to their work, many federal workers lose their health insurance, leaving them poorly equipped to ask for care just like them and their families are faced with a tidal wave of potential mental and physical health consequences. And the country’s mental health system is already underfunded, undergoing personal and overwhelmed. Even with insurance, many people Wait for weeks or months To receive care.
“Most people do not have much money sitting to spend therapy when you have to cover your mortgage for a few months and try to find a different job,” said Allan.
A second NIH worker planned to speak to a psychiatrist and potentially make an antidepressant because of anxiety after being dismissed in February.
“And then the first thought was:” Oh, I’m about to have no insurance. I cannot do this “,” said the worker, who has obtained anonymity to avoid professional reprisals. The worker’s health services should end in April – leaving too little time to get an appointment with a psychiatrist, not to mention a prescription.
“I don’t want to continue something and then have to stop it immediately,” said the worker.
The employee, one of the many NIH workers, has restored this month, is still afraid of being dismissed. The worker focuses on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia and was inspired to join the agency because a grandmother has the disease.
The worker is worried that “decades of research will disappear and that people are not found with anything.”
“I go from anxiety to deep sadness when I think of my own family,” said the employee.
The NIH, with its annual budget of $ 47 billion, is the largest public funder for biomedical research in the world. The agency has awarded Nearly 59,000 subsidies During the financial year 2023, but the Trump administration began to cancel hundreds of subsidies on research subjects to which the new nominees are opposed, in particular the vaccination hesitation and the health of the LGBTQ +populations.
The NIH worker who worked at the National Aging Institute was informed in mid-March that she would be on administrative leave paid “until further notice”. She said she doesn’t know if she would find a similar job, adding that she “cannot be at home to do nothing”.
In addition to loving her work, she said, she has a child at university and another in high school and needs a stable income. “I don’t know what I’m going to do next.”
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