20,000 Employees to Leave HHS

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will likely reduce its staffing 24% to 62,000 full-time employees. That is the opinion of many experts watching the Trump Administration implement its federal agency reduction initiatives. Ten thousand HHS employees already accepted buyouts and early retirement offers. In late March, HHS Secretary Kennedy announced as many as 10,000 jobs cuts at HHS as part of his initiative to streamline the Agency. This streamlining includes eliminating the Administration for Community Living (ACL). ACL functions will be divided across existing Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Administration for Children and Families, and the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. The ACL was created around the fundamental principle that older adults and people with disabilities should be able to live where they choose, with the people they choose, and with the ability to participate fully in their communities. HHS further announced that the restructuring plan will (i) consolidate HHS's 28 divisions into 15, (ii) centralize core functions such as human resources, information technology, procurement, external affairs, and policy, and (iii) reduced the ten regional offices to five.