(DCNF)—A former federal employee fired from the Department of Education (ED) complained Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s administration’s government layoffs are “inhumane.”
In its effort to create a more efficient government, the Trump administration fired more than 10,000 federal employees while 75,000 have reportedly accepted the president’s offer to enter paid leave. Chelsea Milburn, one of the roughly 39 employees fired from the ED, said that Trump letting her go from a job position means he does not respect her “personhood.”
“This really feels like a betrayal in some sense and that they didn’t consider how this impacts people, and especially the 30% of the federal workforce that have served on active duty … I’ve served my country for 11 years and 9 of them on active duty, I deployed twice, I spent so much time away from my family,” Milburn said. “I was gone when my mom passed away and I missed that to serve my country and I was excited to continue serving in this capacity and they not only tore that out from under my feet but couldn’t even just grant me a layoff and instead placed the blame on me, that it was my performance and I have gotten nothing but positive reviews on that.”
“So I feel very much like the message is [that] my service is not valued, they don’t care about how this impacts me or people like me and to me, it’s inhumane, it feels like they’re ignoring our personhood and not respecting us as human beings or as American citizens,” Milburn continued.
Mass layoffs and firings are far more common in the private sector than for someone holding a government job. In 2024, a total of 16.4 million private sector workers were laid off and discharged, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The mass layoffs at the government is intended to eliminate the federal government’s wasteful spending of taxpayer money. The Department of Government Efficiency, the agency in charge of this task, reported Monday that it has saved the federal government $55 billion by cutting the size of the federal government and conducting the mass layoffs.
The agency dismantled the U.S. Agency of International Development (USAID) on Feb. 3 over its billions in spending on wasteful causes, including a $200 million grant to fund of sex change operations in Guatemala, $70,000 for a “DEI musical” in Ireland, and $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia, according to the White House.
The Trump administration fired four employees with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) upon the discovery of the agency spending $59 million to house illegal migrants in luxury hotels throughout New York City.
Trump has reportedly begun drafting an executive order to eliminate the ED and return the issue of education to the states. The federal government spent a record $190 billion in aid to schools since the pandemic, but the funds have thus far failed to improve children’s testing scores.