Public Workers

Schedule Policy/Career is Schedule F with a new name

In October 2020, Trump signed an executive order creating Schedule F, a new job classification that would strip civil service protections from federal employees in “policy-influencing” roles. Biden revoked it on his first day. The new version achieves the same goal through a different route.

Executive Order 14171, signed January 20, 2025, directed OPM to “modernize” how policy-influencing positions are designated. OPM published the final Schedule Policy/Career rule in the Federal Register on February 5, 2026, with an effective date of March 9, 2026. The rule describes existing civil service protections as “unconstitutional overcorrections.”

Here is what the rule does:

OPM estimated about 50,000 employees would be placed into the new classification. But documents from Trump’s first term showed the number could reach 200,000. The difference between a career scientist and a political appointee is that the scientist can tell you something you do not want to hear without getting fired. Schedule Policy/Career closes that gap.

Federal employee unions have already sued OPM seeking records about how agencies plan to implement the rule. Courts have not blocked it.

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DOGE moved into federal agencies and started cutting

The Department of Government Efficiency was not created by legislation. It has no statutory authority and no inspector general. Starting in late January 2025, DOGE operatives gained access to sensitive systems across the federal government and used that access to identify programs and people to eliminate.

Where DOGE got access

A GAO report in April 2026 found that Treasury missed required security controls when granting DOGE access to payment systems. A senator on the oversight committee called the findings “just the tip of the iceberg.”

DOGE also attempted to embed staff beyond the executive branch, targeting nonprofits and independent entities like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the U.S. Institute of Peace. Some pushed back. Many did not.

DOGE staff burrowed into political positions

By August 2025, all remaining DOGE staff had been moved into political positions, raising concerns about “burrowing in” — placing political operatives into roles that would survive a change in administration.

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Agency by agency: who lost what

The damage was not spread evenly. Some agencies lost a quarter of their workforce. Here is what happened at the agencies Americans depend on most.

Social Security Administration

The SSA announced plans to cut 7,000 positions, targeting a workforce of 50,000 down from 57,000. About 40 field offices lost at least 25% of their staff. Some offices in places like Nevada, Missouri and Alexandria, Minnesota lost half or more of their workers.

The agency plans to cut field office visits by 50% in fiscal 2026, capping in-person visits at 15 million. It consolidated from 10 regional offices to four. Phone wait times averaged over 100 minutes when callers accepted a callback option. The people most affected are seniors, people with disabilities, and survivors applying for benefits they have already earned.

Veterans Affairs

The VA shed roughly 40,000 employees according to a Democratic congressional report, with a net reduction of more than 27,000 positions after accounting for new hires. Staffing caps remain in place even after a hiring freeze was officially lifted in January 2026.

Veterans are feeling the impact. Appointments are being canceled or delayed. PTSD-specific appointments and group therapy sessions are taking longer to schedule. Facilities from Seattle to Buffalo are on track to lose psychologists. Veterans who depend on consistent care are being pushed into instability.

Environmental Protection Agency

The EPA lost more than 4,000 employees in the first year of the second term, dropping to roughly 12,849 people, the lowest since the Reagan era. Congress cut only 4% of funding in actual appropriations, but the agency’s inspector general found the EPA has shed too many employees to manage its portfolio of grants.

The EPA’s response to being understaffed was not to hire. It was to slash its workload: fewer inspections, slower enforcement, and less monitoring of the air and water.

IRS

The IRS cut its workforce by roughly 27%, with about 26,100 separations. The results showed up immediately in tax season:

• Paper returns took an average of 36 days to process, up from 27 the year before
• The backlog of returns awaiting processing grew 33% between December 2024 and December 2025
• Wait times on the main toll-free line increased more than 70% between February 2025 and February 2026
• About 1.5 million taxpayers waited around 10 weeks for their refund

The agency tapped employees with no relevant experience to assist during filing season. Overtime hours spiked. Digitization efforts fell short.

NOAA

NOAA planned to shrink from more than 12,000 full-time employees to about 10,000, a 17% reduction. The administration proposed a 27% cut to NOAA’s budget. About 650 probationary employees were fired in February 2025, then some were reinstated, then fired again, then offered jobs back.

Experts warned that reducing NOAA’s research and observation capabilities could set hurricane forecasting back by decades. This matters most to the people living in hurricane zones along the Gulf Coast and Atlantic seaboard.

CDC

The CDC lost about a quarter of its staff — more than 3,000 employees — in waves of cuts throughout 2025. About 1,000 were let go in February. Another round hit in April as part of a broader HHS reduction of 20,000 positions. In October, around 600 more were cut during the government shutdown.

Programs that aimed to reduce smoking and gun violence were stopped. The entire staff of the CDC’s Washington office was eliminated. Local health departments are now operating with less support in the middle of the next disease season.

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The deferred resignation program was a buyout designed as a squeeze

In late January 2025, OPM emailed every federal employee with what it called a “Fork in the Road” offer: resign now, receive pay and benefits through the end of the fiscal year, and leave government by September 30.

More than 75,000 employees accepted the first round. Agencies offered second and third rounds with less generous terms. By the end of 2025, an estimated 144,000 to 200,000 employees had entered the deferred resignation program across all rounds.

The government paid an estimated $4.5 billion to employees who took the deal. OPM claimed 92% of departures were “voluntary.” But many employees who left said the choice did not feel voluntary when the alternative was constant threats of layoffs, reassignment to distant offices, or reclassification under Schedule Policy/Career.

September 2025 was the single largest month for federal workforce separations, with more than 125,000 employees leaving their jobs as the deferred resignation deadline arrived.

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The services you depend on are breaking down

This is not an abstraction. When the federal workforce shrinks, the services Americans rely on get slower, thinner, or stop altogether.

Food safety. The FDA shuttered two of its seven food testing labs. Seafood inspections and produce testing were delayed. USDA lost 21,600 employees, including staff in animal and plant health inspection. The Center for Science in the Public Interest warned that the federal food safety system is “teetering on the brink of collapse.”

Tax refunds. 1.5 million taxpayers waited 10 weeks for refunds. The IRS backlog grew by a third. Wait times on the phone jumped 70%.

Social Security. Phone waits of 100 minutes. Field offices losing half their staff. The agency aiming to serve 15 million fewer visitors in person next year.

Veterans health care. Appointments canceled. Psychologists leaving. Hiring approvals delayed even after the freeze was lifted.

Weather forecasting. NOAA losing the researchers who improve hurricane and severe storm prediction.

Disease surveillance. CDC outbreak tracking and prevention programs stopped or scaled back. States lost federal funding for local public health outreach.

The Partnership for Public Service described these as “dangerous gaps” in food safety, Social Security, and veterans health care, and warned the loss of expertise “will take decades to repair.”

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The inspector general firings gutted federal oversight

On January 24, 2025, five days into his second term, Trump fired 17 inspectors general without notifying Congress or providing justification. Under the Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended in 2022, the president must give Congress 30 days notice and provide a “substantive rationale” before removing an IG.

Federal Judge Ana Reyes ruled the firings unlawful, finding Trump violated the IG Act. But she declined to reinstate the fired watchdogs, reasoning that Trump could simply fire them again in 30 days.

The damage goes beyond the firings themselves:

• IG offices across government lost 20% to 30% of their staff as the broader workforce reduction hit oversight teams
• The FY2027 budget proposal would cut IG funding by an average of 12%, with Interior and Justice facing 28% cuts each
• Oversight employees reported fears of retaliation for doing their jobs in a Senate report

Inspectors general are the federal government’s internal auditors. They catch fraud and waste. Without them, nobody can answer the $4.5 billion question: when the administration pays billions to push workers out the door and hands system access to political operatives, who is watching where the money goes?

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Timeline: how it happened

Date	What happened
January 20, 2025	Trump signs Executive Order 14171 directing OPM to revive Schedule F
January 24, 2025	17 inspectors general fired without congressional notice
Late January 2025	”Fork in the Road” deferred resignation offer sent to all federal employees
February 2025	DOGE gains access to Treasury, OPM, and Education Department systems; roughly 25,000 probationary employees fired across agencies
April 2025	HHS cuts 20,000 positions; second deferred resignation rounds open at multiple agencies
September 2025	DRP deadline hits; 125,000+ employees leave in one month; EPA reaches one-third workforce reduction
October 2025	43-day government shutdown begins; CDC and other agencies face additional weekend firings
November 2025	OPM announces 317,000 departures, surpassing the administration’s goal
February 2026	Schedule Policy/Career final rule published; effective March 9
March 2026	CDC and IRS begin limited hiring pushes to fill critical gaps
April 2026	GAO finds Treasury violated security controls in granting DOGE payment system access

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Protect yourself right now

1. Watch your own services. Are you waiting longer for a tax refund? Is your local Social Security office still open? Did your VA appointment get rescheduled? Document it. Report it to your representative’s office. Constituent complaints are data that staffers track.

2. Check your Social Security statement. Log in at ssa.gov/myaccount and verify your earnings record and benefits estimate. If something is wrong, file a correction now before backlogs get worse.

3. Know your VA rights. If your VA appointment was canceled or delayed, file a complaint through the VA patient advocate program. Document the original date, the rescheduled date, and how long you waited.

4. Verify your tax return status. If your refund is delayed beyond 21 days for e-filed returns, check irs.gov/refunds and contact the Taxpayer Advocate Service if you are facing financial hardship.

5. Support federal workers publicly. The strategy depends on isolation. When career employees are called “bureaucrats” and “the deep state,” it becomes easier to fire them. When they are called what they are — food inspectors, weather forecasters, disability claims processors, nurses at VA hospitals — it becomes harder.

6. Show up at town halls. Your representative has to answer for these votes. Ask about Schedule Policy/Career, inspector general funding, and agency staffing levels, in person, on the record.