The Department of Government Efficiency has taken a sledgehammer to the federal government’s operations in an effort to cut spending under the orders of billionaire Elon Musk. That effort has led to the firing of thousands of federal employees with little or no warning, including nearly 6,000 employees of the United States Department of Agriculture.
Elise Soto, Jackie Adler and Kate Westcott were all fired on February 14th.
“Valentine’s Day Massacre! They let go of like 4,000 people within 20 hours,” said Adler.
Each received nearly identical termination letters that read, in part: “The Agency finds, based on your performance, that you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the Agency would be in the public interest.”
Westcott and Soto had joined the Food Distribution Branch of the Northeast Regional Office’s Food Nutrition Services in December, working remotely.
Westcott says it came out of nowhere.
“The email was very rude! And said, ‘based on your performance you’re not good for the American people, your job should not be continued.’ Which I thought was crazy because I had only worked there for a couple of months and I had not had a performance review yet. So, and my boss congratulated both Elise and I on our progress—it felt like we were both progressing through our training very well,” said Westcott.
Their branch had three employees cut out of seven. They coordinate federal grants and help seven states, including New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, and the Virgin Islands distribute food.
“The food will not get to the people who need it. That’s the biggest issue that I think is going to happen. Elise and I dealt with distributing local, domestic food product to these programs. So, anytime there was a delivery issue or even just ordering the food to get to the schools, and the elderly assistance program, and to the food banks we were handling those deliveries and distributions. So, I’m worried that the food is not going to get to where it needs to go and that people will go hungry,” said Westcott.
Soto says a job at USDA was something she spent years building up to. The whirlwind of losing it has been a shock to the system —putting her and her child at risk of needing the programs she was helping to coordinate.
“So mid-December, we got hired, and then mid-February, we were fired. Before that, I worked for New York State Office of General Services. I administered the emergency food assistance program there for New York State for two years, and it's very near and dear to my heart. The mission is to support the Emergency Food Network. And before that, I have a background in being a child from food insecurity, so it kind of just brought me full circle. I was able to get out of a tight spot when I was younger, and I moved up, went to college, I went to culinary school, actually, so food is very much been a part of my life, and from the state to the federal government, and now back again to needing food assistance,” said Soto.
As federal employees share their stories, many are doing so anonymously. But Soto says it’s important to put names and faces to the statistics.
“I think it’s to show the other person that you can speak up, your voice matters, your story matters. And it just brings humanity to it. I’m a single mother and this has caused a detriment to my household. But, not only that, I want other people to know that you can be brave enough, and speak up, and use your voice, because you matter, right? We’re all American citizens here, we matter. Our voice matters. And with the support of the unions sharing our names and sharing our stories also shows them that we’re all in this together,” said Soto.
Westcott says one of the most disheartening parts of the past month has been seeing an increase in rhetoric online that paints federal employees as lazy or just looking for a paycheck — they believe in the missions of their branches and want to make sure the most vulnerable citizens in their region can survive.
“My manager was working, honestly, like 15 hours a day. Not getting reimbursed for it, not getting paid for it, but because she cared about the program and wanted people to be able to be fed. And even when we got terminated at 9 o’clock in the morning I stayed until 5:30. Like I wanted to make sure everything was still good to go until the last possible second that I could until I got kicked off my computer. I could be making more money somewhere else, that’s not why I’m doing it. I want to help people, I want to make sure that people are fed,” said Westcott.
Adler had been at the Food and Nutrition Services Branch working on Community Nutrition Programs for seven weeks before she was laid off.
She says it’s not like there was a lot of bloat to begin with in the regional office.
“NERO itself, the Northeast Regional Office, should be staffed at about 120. We were staffed before we were fired at 100. Now, they’re staffed at 84 out of 120. So, please explain to me how that’s efficient when people are not going to be able to get the work that needs to get done in the time it needs to be done so that people can get the services they need on the other side,” said Adler.
Prior to her brief stint with USDA, Adler had worked in public schools for a decade. She was driven to join the USDA after seeing the importance of free, quality meals at schools.
“Like this is the culmination. You get to this place, and you’re like, ‘cool, I’ve worked my butt off, I’ve done all these things, this is where I retire from. And that always was the concept,” said Adler.
Adler was assigned to coordinate a novel summer EBT program for families who rely on school lunches to feed their kids year-round — a program she says will now go understaffed, possibly resulting in children going unnecessarily hungry.
She adds there’s irony in DOGE’s goal of increasing efficiency by cutting skilled workers with years of program experience.
“We’re, not to be funny, like the best of the best. We’re people who know these programs. I’ve worked in schools, you’ve done the jobs that you’ve done, you know your programs. And we take that knowledge and expertise so that we can help state agencies. And the irony of government efficiency, we’re the people. Because we know how to look at state agencies and other programs and say, ‘hey, you’re not spending your money right, you need to spend your money this way.’ Without us and without people at the top like that there’s no guidance for state agencies and other people,” said Adler.
All three women are probationary employees and had no Plan B. They expected to stay longer than two months after working so long to join the USDA.
As reported by NPR, USDA is set to temporarily reinstate most of the employees fired thus far for 45 days while an investigation into their terminations continue.
Soto says she’d return if given the chance even if only temporarily.
“Because of the mission. It’s very important to me and I said I would absolutely go back. Do I trust my job to be secure even though I’m supposed to be a union contracted employee? No, not at all,” said Soto.
“I think we all need backup plans,” added Adler.
“Yeah, I think it’s time to look at back up plans because you can’t trust the government,” said Soto.
Soto says as of Wednesday they have not heard from USDA about being reinstated.
