Ninety-five per cent of recently fired US federal workers report ongoing mental health effects, according to a new survey that lays bare the psychological toll of the Trump administration’s mass dismissals. The findings, released by 27UNIHTED – a network of former National Institutes of Health (NIH) employees – paint a stark picture of trauma, with nearly half of respondents describing symptoms akin to post-traumatic stress disorder and a quarter having started new medication to cope.
Survey reveals mental health crisis among fired probationary workers
The survey, completed by more than 300 probationary employees who were terminated as part of a sweeping purge of the federal workforce, found that the mental health consequences are widespread and persistent. Respondents were spread across 43 states and the US Virgin Islands, and had worked in 12 different departments across 15 agencies, bureaux and subgroups. They are a tiny fraction of the more than 300,000 federal workers who have been laid off, pushed to resign or encouraged to retire since Donald Trump began his second term. Of those, more than 25,000 were fired in the middle of their probationary period – typically the first year or two of employment, when civil service protections are weakest.
Beyond the headline figures, the survey documented a range of new or worsened conditions. Former employees reported experiencing anxiety, depression, shame and emotional exhaustion, often linked to prolonged unemployment and financial strain. Some said their situation had deteriorated further because grief was compounded by embarrassment and a sense of stigma. The most common answer to the question of how long it took to find a new job was “still unemployed”, with around 80 participants stating they had submitted more than 100 applications.
The financial repercussions were equally severe. One in five respondents remained out of work as of 31 January, and 49 per cent of those who had found new roles said they were earning significantly less. Only 11 per cent of fired probationary workers managed to secure another position within the federal government. Those findings directly contradict a claim made by President Trump in January, when he asserted that dismissed federal employees were “getting sometimes twice as much money, three times as much money” and “much better jobs and much higher pay”.
Personal accounts of loss and trauma
Brier Ryver worked as a park ranger at the Crystal River national wildlife refuge, Florida’s only protected area for manatees. She was fired along with other federal probationary employees while running a six-week education programme for children. After another probationary colleague was terminated, Ryver was temporarily reinstated in March 2025, only to be dismissed again that May. “I love that job, so I went back to it, but the instability was very apparent,” she said. “Even now, still talking to people who are still reinstated, it still feels like they’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
Ryver noted that the firings have set a dangerous precedent, allowing the federal government to remove employees on a whim despite the existence of civil service protections. “These unlawful terminations that should have never happened in the first place have had deep personal impacts,” she said. “I still have PTSD-like symptoms in my own life that are impacting my ability to work, and although I’m in a different role now, it’s still at the back of my mind, what happened to us.”
Christa Reynolds worked as a contractor for the NIH for eight years before becoming a programme analyst at the agency. “I felt like I was doing really well. I got an award from my department, I got really good performance reviews,” she said. “Then just like out of nowhere, this illegal firing took place.” Reynolds helped conduct the survey and expressed disappointment with a September 2025 court ruling that, while deeming the mass firings unlawful, did not require agencies to reinstate all terminated employees. “Federal workers are not supposed to do work at the whims of a presidential administration, but instead focus on benefiting the public,” she said.
Reynolds recalled a private comment made in 2024 by Russell Vought, the lead architect of Project 2025, before he was appointed head of the Office of Management and Budget. “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” Vought had said. “It just seems like a terrible thing to say. You’re targeting people who have dedicated their careers to helping the country,” Reynolds added.
Dr Whitney Behr, a biologist who joined US Fish and Wildlife in June 2024, was fired in February 2025 while travelling for a work training event – because she was still on probation. “I moved out of my apartment immediately after being fired because I knew I couldn’t afford it anymore, and moved in with family a few hours away,” she said. Though she was temporarily reinstated after a court order, “it also seemed like they were going to fire us again”. By May 2025, when several agencies began dismissing probationary employees for a second time, Behr had already accepted a job offer in the UK. She is part of a broader exodus: more than 10,000 doctoral-trained experts in STEM fields have left US government jobs since Trump started his second term, according to an analysis by Science magazine, with the NIH suffering the heaviest losses.
“There are a lot of PhD-level scientists that the government lost,” Behr said. “There are species going extinct right now and there’s just nothing we can do about it. There are projects that were paid for that are not getting completed.” She added that she continues to “rage at the open theft” of American taxpayers, who are funding a dysfunctional federal government. “I would like people to be aware of what has been stolen from them, and not just our careers. I would like people to understand that they are being stolen from in ways that may not be able to be repaired.”
Broader implications and legal challenges
In September 2025, US District Judge William Alsup ruled that the mass firings of probationary employees were unlawful. He found that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) had exceeded its authority by instructing agencies to terminate workers based on what the judge called “fabricated performance issues”. The government’s argument that agencies had acted independently was rejected; Judge Alsup concluded that they were indeed required to follow OPM directives. However, he did not order agencies to reinstate all fired workers, noting that many had already moved on or would not want to return. Instead, he directed OPM to send letters to affected employees clarifying that their termination was not due to poor performance and to update their personnel files accordingly.
The legal fight is far from over. Several court cases related to the firings remain active, and workers have filed appeals with the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). The MSPB has seen a surge in appeals, with some categories rising by as much as 2,100 per cent in recent months – a backlog that already exceeds the one that accumulated during parts of Trump’s first administration, when the board was non-functional due to a lack of appointed members. Labour attorneys note that the appeals process can take years, offering little swift justice for those who were illegally dismissed.
The firings of probationary employees are part of a much larger strategy to shrink the federal workforce. Project 2025, the initiative led by Russell Vought, aimed to fundamentally reshape government through mass dismissals and loyalty tests. A related effort, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), reportedly led by Elon Musk, was associated with widespread lay-offs. By August 2025, nearly 200,000 federal workers had already left their jobs, with overall separations – including resignations, retirements and lay-offs – rising by 80.8 per cent compared with 2024.
The erosion of civil service protections has been accelerated by regulatory changes. The administration enacted a final rule establishing a “Schedule Policy/Career” classification for policy-influencing roles, stripping job protections from as many as 50,000 employees. Critics argue this undermines the principle of a nonpartisan civil service. The impact on public services is expected to be severe, as state and local entities that collaborate with or rely on federal agencies – such as public health departments working with the CDC, corrections authorities benefiting from Department of Labor enforcement, and local housing authorities depending on HUD – face staffing shortages and reduced capacity.
The White House declined to comment, deferring to the Office of Personnel Management. OPM did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Meanwhile, many former probationary workers continue to struggle with the psychological and financial aftermath, haunted by a threat that, as Brier Ryver put it, “was very apparent” – the knowledge that at any moment, the other shoe could drop again.