Major US Health Agency Offers $25K Buyout To 80,000 Employees, Decision Deadline Set For Friday

The U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) has offered a $25,000 buyout program to its 80,000 personnel, giving them until Friday to decide whether to accept the so-called voluntary separation offer.

The HHS oversees some of the country's leading health agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) -- both critical in U.S. health services.

Workers who received the emails were directed to reach out to their local human resources office for their voluntary separation submissions.

Buyout program hits critical units

The HHS sent emails to personnel across the department, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the CDC, reaching a "broad population of HHS employees," as per The Associated Press.

All employees received the email about the "voluntary separation incentive payment," CBS News reported, citing a source familiar with the situation.

President Donald Trump's appointed health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., also called RFK Jr., said last month that he had a "list" of workers he wanted to fire from the HHS, including staffers who "made really bad decisions."

The news came amid the Trump administration's push to downsize the federal government, as promoted by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Musk has repeatedly said there were many federal workers who were "doing nothing" and many programs were supposedly useless or were just a waste of taxpayer money.

The HHS is one of the most costly agencies in the federal government, with a $1.7 trillion annual budget -- a huge chunk of the budget is spent on Medicare and Medicaid services that are crucial to assist older Americans and disabled or less fortunate citizens.

Why the workforce reductions matter

The HHS leads some of the country's most critical programs, and workforce reductions of huge scale are expected to have a massive impact on the agency's ability to provide the necessary services for Americans.

A measles outbreak is already gripping the country, and a bird flu outbreak has also contributed largely to the spike in egg prices across the U.S.

Similar buyouts offered in recent weeks

The HHS is just one of several federal agencies that offer a voluntary exit path for employees.

Last week, the Social Security Administration offered buyout programs between $15,000 and $25,000. It also noted that employees who have reached their full retirement age may apply for optional retirement anytime.

The SSA's offerings were made ahead of "agency-wide organizational restructuring that will include significant workforce reductions."

Earlier last month, around 75,000 of the federal government's 2.3 million workers accepted Trump's buyout offer, falling short of the DOGE's estimates that between 5% and 10% of the total federal workforce will opt in.

The Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management, in a joint memo late last month, asked all federal agencies to prepare "to initiate large-scale reductions in force" and submit their plans by Thursday.