Marylanders accounted for more than a quarter of the 10,000 people the Trump administration cut from the Department of Health and Human Services workforce.
About 2,750 people were laid off from Maryland HHS offices at the end of March, according to data from the Maryland Department of Labor.
The cuts went across 11 offices, Montgomery County took the brunt of the layoffs, however there were firings in Baltimore, Baltimore County and Prince George’s County as well.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the firings last week, claiming that the layoffs would save $1.8 billion.
HHS is planning to reduce its force from 82,000 to 62,000, with the other 10,000 coming from early retirements.
“We aren't just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic,” Kennedy. said. “This department will do more — a lot more — at a lower cost to the taxpayer.”
Critics disagree however.
Many of the cuts dig into programs that focus on aging populations, people who are disabled and those who are in poverty.
Critics fear that cuts will harm public health and food safety efforts.
“The Food and Drug Administration makes sure that the foods we eat are safe and the medicines that we take are safe,” U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), said of the agency that falls under HHS. “They're cutting at the National Institutes of Health. NIH does research to develop cures and treatments to address diseases that impact every American family. When you cut the research at NIH people will die earlier than they would have people will not be cured from diseases that they would have been cured.”
At the same time, the Trump administration is also rescinding HHS grants to Maryland worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
On Monday, the White House released a list of contracts it terminated, which encompassed the Maryland Department of Health, Johns Hopkins University and The University of Maryland System.
About 50 contracts and grants held by the state government and Maryland institutions were terminated under the executive order.
All of the contracts in Maryland and nationwide were related to minority health, HIV, transgender care, vaccines and COVID research.
