An estimated 200,000 federal workers have been targeted for layoffs by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency bloodbath. Many of them are probationary employees, and that has hit military families hard.
The Military Family Advisory Network reports that in 2023, one in five military and veteran families were food insecure, rising to one in four among active duty families. Military members’ spouses and their families move involuntarily every two to three years on average, meaning they often have to change jobs. Employing military members’ spouses has been the focus of multiple administrations, hoping to ease the financial burdens many military families face. Even Trump, during his first administration, signed Executive Order 13832, Enhancing Noncompetitive Civil Service Appointments of Military Spouses.
“They said that at every spouse orientation at a new duty station: ‘You can volunteer! Or you can get a job in the government,’” one Louisiana-based military spouse told CNN. “They tell you that: that the government wants to employ military spouses.”
Musk and Trump’s focus on federal probationary employees, presumably because of the weaker labor protections afforded them, disproportionately hurts military spouses. “I thought [the terminations] would be a methodical approach: figure out what’s needed, what’s not,” a spouse named Rachael told CNN. “But that is not what this is. Instead, it is just blanket firing of probationary employees because they have fewer rights without regard for their function.”
Elon Musk
A federal workers’ probationary period can last between 1 to 2 years. Unlike non-probationary employees, they have few rights. They can be dismissed without prior notice and without severance. In most cases, they lack the right to even challenge their termination.
In many cases, the military spouses being laid off in the blunt attack on our country's federal workforce have been employed by the federal government, and developed their skill sets, for decades.
Unions of federal workers are suing the Trump administration for taking advantage of the probationary period to terminate staff across government agencies, saying it “represents one of the most massive employment frauds in the history of this country.”
On Thursday, Rachael Shaw, a recently fired Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employee and military spouse, told ABC News she is pursuing legal action.“It seems like these cuts are acting to roll back a lot of the progress and a lot of the policy efforts that previous administrations have made in an attempt to reduce military spouses’ unemployment and ultimately to contribute to military member recruitment and retain them.”
It doesn’t take a genius to break things apart—just someone with the temperament of a petulant child. That’s why Musk and Trump are perfect for the job.
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