Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a major, sweeping overhaul to help “Make America Healthy Again” on Thursday.
The Trump administration will cut 10,000 unneeded full-time employees from RFK, Jr.’s department, shrinking the HHS workforce by nearly a quarter.
The restructuring means HHS will employ 62,000 people, down from a staggering 82,000 at the start of the Trump administration and representing a 33% reduction from the 92,620 employees who worked there under President Biden.
“The entire federal workforce is downsizing now. So this will be a painful period for HHS,” Kennedy, 71, said in a video announcement shared by the department.
The plan, developed with billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) task force, will consolidate 28 divisions into just 15 main units. Kennedy said the changes will save taxpayers $1.8 billion annually.
“We’re going to streamline our agency and eliminate redundancies and invite everyone to align behind a simple, bold mission,” Kennedy declared. “I want every HHS employee to wake up every morning asking themselves, ‘what can I do to restore American health today.'”
The deepest cuts target the Food and Drug Administration, which will shed 3,500 jobs or 19% of its workforce. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will offboard 2,400 employees, representing 18% of its staff.
“This reduction will not affect drug, medical device, or food reviewers, nor will it impact inspectors,” a department fact sheet said regarding the FDA cuts.
The National Institutes of Health will lose 1,200 positions, while the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will cut approximately 300 employees.
“We’re keenly focused on paring away excess administrators while increasing the number of scientists and frontline health care providers so that we can do a better job,” Kennedy insisted.
One of the biggest changes is the creation of a new Administration for a Healthy America (AHA), which will consolidate work from multiple existing agencies including the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, Health Resources and Services Administration, and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
“We’re going to eliminate an entire alphabet soup of departments and agencies while preserving their core functions,” Kennedy said.
Other significant changes include:
- The Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response will be absorbed into the CDC
- The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality will merge with another agency to create the Office of Strategy
- Functions from the Administration for Community Living targeted at older adults and people with disabilities will be moved to other agencies
- Five of the current 10 regional offices will be closed
- A new Assistant Secretary for Enforcement role will be created to crack down on waste
The layoffs are “primarily aimed at administrative positions,” according to a letter sent Thursday to unions, but will also target “high-cost regions” and roles “determined to be redundant or duplicative.” Specific notices to employees may be sent as early as Friday, March 28.
“When I arrived, I found that over half of our employees don’t even come to work,” Kennedy claimed. “A few isolated divisions are neglecting public health altogether and seem only accountable to the industries that they’re supposed to be regulating.”
Kennedy earlier cited what he considered duplicated work for communications, procurement, IT and HR departments across 40 operating divisions in HHS.
“We are with Elon’s help eliminating the redundancies,” Kennedy said Monday.
The department, which oversees a $1.7 trillion annual budget, had already lost thousands of employees in recent months through early retirements, in addition to contractor and fellowship positions that were eliminated.
“I want this agency to once again be a revered scientific institution,” Kennedy added. “This overhaul will be a win-win for taxpayers and for those that HHS serves. That’s the entire American public, because our goal is to Make America Healthy Again.”