Since taking office in January, the Trump Administration has cut more than 121,000 federal workers, many of them in programs that care for children. The Administration is actively dismantling the Department of Education, which is the only department explicitly focused on serving kids. The U.S. Agency for International Development has been eliminated, which threatens access to clean water, food, and lifesaving interventions for children in some of the world’s poorest countries. The Trump Administration also plans to cut 10,000 additional jobs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, including at the Administration for Children and Families and other agencies that serve children. These announcements have been much-discussed and well-covered, but what hasn’t been adequately addressed is the devastating impact these cuts will have on children.
The Trump Administration has made children a political target, which is not only immoral, it’s costly. Kids can’t vote, and they don’t have political action committees or lobbying power. But investing in children leads to better health outcomes, higher educational attainment, and increased earnings as adults. A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that every dollar the federal government invests in programs that benefit children yields $10 or more in societal returns.
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
The Administration for Children and Families (ACF): ACF, which administers some of the most important programs for children, including child care, child welfare, and Head Start, has lost 35-40% of its staff, according to recent reports. Five of 10 regional offices have shuttered, eliminating Head Start, child care, child support, and other staff in those offices. Regional offices provide near constant communication between HHS and the states and jurisdictions implementing HHS programs. This includes oversight of grantees to ensure the integrity of federal programs, fielding technical assistance and program questions, and ensuring child health and safety in these programs. Head Start, which currently serves over 800,000 children and their families, including children with disabilities, those in foster care, and children experiencing homelessness, and has served over 40 million children and families throughout its history, is under multiple attacks from this administration and lost over one-third of its entire staff. This will mean fewer services and child care slots for children and their families, which are already exceedingly difficult to find and afford. Cuts to ACF will also negatively impact child welfare efforts to keep children safe and with their families. All staff working on the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG) have been eliminated. SSBG serves 2.5 million children through child welfare services, and 13% of its funding is spent on child care. Staff that administers the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, which provides states with funds that can be used for direct payments to families and for child welfare services, have also been eliminated.
Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA): Major job losses are being felt at the Health Resources and Services Administration, including to the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, which administers programs including the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program; Healthy Start; and the Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant, which prevent infant and maternal mortality and support child development.
Federal Drug Administration (FDA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH): The FDA and NIH are experiencing deep cuts in staff and expertise. The FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products is losing significant staff, which will hobble the agency’s enforcement efforts against illegal e-cigarette products that target children in their marketing. The head of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development has been removed from NIH, along with employees and researchers who do critical work on childhood cancer and vaccines. This loss of expertise will be devastating to efforts to screen newborns for disorders that harm their cognitive development, create vaccines that address infectious childhood diseases, and save the lives of preterm infants.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC): Staff cuts to the CDC eliminate the Office on Smoking and Health. This would eliminate the National Youth Tobacco Survey, which collects data on tobacco use by middle and high school students and identifies the emergence of new threats and dangerous trends in youth tobacco use and youth access to tobacco products. These CDC cuts would also eliminate the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, which funds vital gun violence prevention research that studies and makes recommendations on topics including preventing youth suicide with firearms and safe firearm storage. The center also funds work to prevent child drownings, car fatalities, child abuse, and other grave threats to children. The CDC’s Lead Poisoning Prevention and Surveillance Branch was also decimated by these cuts, threatening greater exposure to lead for children, which will lead to serious health impacts.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA): SAMHSA has experienced significant cuts to its staff and is slated for elimination. The Trump Administration plans to collapse SAMHSA and several other entities into a new agency at HHS. Staff cuts will impact the work of the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, including the specialized LGBTQ+ line, which was created in 2023 to provide services to LGBTQ+ youth who are among those at highest risk for mental health issues and suicide. SAMHSA funds mental health and substance use prevention efforts for youth, administers Project AWARE, which increases mental health awareness in schools, and funds work on youth social media use and mental health. These efforts for children are at great risk with the significant cuts and reorganization SAMHSA is undergoing.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)
CMS oversight includes Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the Affordable Care Act Marketplace. Medicaid and CHIP provide over 37 million children with health coverage. An additional 2 million children are enrolled in Marketplace coverage. CMS now faces the challenge of maintaining its critical operations with a significantly reduced workforce.
As part of the HHS workforce reductions, CMS lost 300 staff members who help ensure children can apply for, enroll in, and maintain their health coverage and who help provide the oversight to ensure children access high quality, timely physical and mental health care. Specific CMS offices affected by the cuts include the Office of Minority Health and the Office of Program Operations & Local Engagement.
Staff reductions in the Office of Minority Health threaten to undermine efforts to address health disparities that disproportionately affect minority children. Medicaid and CHIP are primary sources of coverage for children of color. More than half of children who identify as Native American, Black, Latino, or multiracial have Medicaid as their source of health insurance. Children of color in the United States face an array of health disparities, including higher rates of chronic conditions such as asthma, obesity, diabetes, and hypertension. Black and Native American infants have higher rates of infant mortality compared to White infants. Limited access to mental health services, higher rates of being uninsured or underinsured, and disparities in oral health are also evident among children of color. The Office of Minority Health’s work is essential for developing innovative solutions to reduce costs, prevent disease, and decrease the prevalence and severity of chronic illnesses among minority populations. The reduction in capacity will likely result in fewer targeted interventions for children, exacerbating existing health inequities.
With substantial workforce cuts in the Office of Program Operations & Local Engagement (OPOLE), the implementation and oversight of CMS programs will likely suffer from reduced capacity and expertise. This office’s role in engaging with local stakeholders is crucial for ensuring that CMS programs effectively serve the unique needs of different communities and their children. An example of the children these workforce reductions might impact the most are those living in rural areas. OPOLE is responsible for implementing CMS’ rural health strategy at the local level. This strategy includes ensuring CMS programs and policies have a rural lens, advancing telehealth and telemedicine, and improving access to care through provider engagement and support. With fewer staff to implement the CMS rural strategy, children living in rural areas are at risk of seeing reduced access to care.
The CMS layoffs come at a particularly sensitive time for public health in the United States. The country is currently experiencing a severe measles outbreak. Just several months into 2025, the nation has recorded the most measles cases in a single year since 2019. Nationwide, there have been over 600 cases recorded across at least 21 states. The outbreak has led to the deaths of two children in Texas.
Overall, with reductions in staff across offices responsible for program implementation, health equity, and service coordination, there is a risk of disruption to health services for children, especially those in rural areas and those who face the most health disparities.
Department of Education (ED)
The Department of Education is the one-and-only federal agency committed exclusively to children, and it is an essential force for ensuring that all of the nation’s students receive a well-supported and equitable public education. In March, the Trump Administration fired roughly half of the Department of Education’s workforce. When President Trump started his term, The Department of Education had 4,133 employees. After these reductions, just 2,183 employees will be left. The Department of Education plays a critical role in enforcing federal civil rights laws and supporting underserved student groups. A key role of the Department is in implementing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which entitles students with disabilities to a free appropriate public education. The Administration has announced plans to move IDEA to the Department of Health and Human Services, which would take it out of the hands of seasoned education policy experts and would weaken the parent support networks currently in place.
Even before firing half of its staff, the Department of Education was the smallest Cabinet-level agency. After the initial workforce reductions, President Trump signed an executive order aimed at dismantling the Department of Education. While he claimed he would be “returning education, very simply, back to the states where it belongs,” he did not clarify what functions would be returned to states. Instead, the plans seem to be to eliminate federal education support without providing any additional resources or assistance to states. While complete abolition of the department would require congressional action, the actions of the Trump Administration already have made it more difficult for the department to accomplish its goals. Recent staff cuts have drastically harmed the Office for Civil Rights and Institute of Education Sciences.
Office for Civil Rights: The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) enforces federal civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination in programs or activities in schools that receive federal funding. OCR has been hit particularly hard by the layoffs, devastating many regional offices. There is an critical need for the Office for Civil Rights – In FY 2024, OCR received over 20,000 complaints. This is continuing a pattern of OCR receiving the highest-ever number of complaints per year for the past three years.
Institute of Education Sciences: The cuts at ED disproportionately affected staff at the Institute of Education Sciences, the department’s research arm. The cuts trimmed more than 60% of IES staff. IES evaluates education programs, works to improve outcomes for all students, and is able to paint a picture of how well the U.S. is educating its students. IES plays a critical role in flagging challenges American students face, such as the bullying contributing to the youth mental health crisis.
United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
For decades, the United States was the world leader in ending deaths of children under five years of age due to preventable disease and malnutrition. U.S. efforts saved millions of children a year and slashed the child death rate from 12.8 million in 1990 to less than 5 million in 2024. Before January 2025, USAID led the world in the promotion of maternal and child health, nutrition, malaria prevention and treatment, HIV prevention and treatment, child protection and primary education. The U.S. spent roughly $4 billion annually on programs that kept vulnerable children alive and healthy. But the Trump Administration’s destruction of USAID has changed all that.
The complete loss of USAID and its world-class staff, and the decline of U.S. foreign assistance overall, has been absolutely devastating for children worldwide. Below are a few of the estimated impacts over the next year:
- 11,262,264 newborns will no longer receive critical postnatal care within two days of birth.
- 14,782,398 children will no longer be treated for pneumonia and diarrhea,which are among the top causes of preventable deaths in children under 5.
- 16,800,000 pregnant women will no longer be reached by life-saving services.
- 1 million children will no longer be treated for severe acute malnutrition. Before its destruction, USAID supplied half of global nutrition treatment and hunger prevention services and its dissolution has broken any supply chains that were left to provide ready to use food packets to save the lives of starving children. Last year alone, 28.4 million children under 5 and 11.5 million pregnant women were reached with USAID nutrition-specific interventions.
- An additional 500,000 children could die as a result of AIDS by 2030, and an additional 1 million could contract HIV if PEPFAR programs continue to be reduced or eliminated.
- 6.6 million orphans and vulnerable children previously supported will no longer be fed, in school, or protected from violence and sex trafficking.
- The abrupt termination of USAID’s 396 basic education programs in 58 countries leaves millions of child refugees, learners with disabilities, linguistic, ethnic, and religious minorities, and children living in poverty without access to quality education and the protection and hope for the future it provides.
USAID housed the Office of Children in Adversity, which was charged with coordinating foreign assistance for children across the federal government. The office implemented the whole-of-government and multi-sectoral U.S. strategy to advance care and protection for children around the world and addressed early child development through the Global Child Thrive Act. USAID also funded early child development efforts such as responsive parenting programs in Cambodia, children living outside of family care, and children with disabilities.
Department of Labor
Cuts at the Department of Labor will include the Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB), whose mission is to strengthen global labor standards and combat international child labor, forced labor, and human trafficking. Layoffs began following the cancellation of $500 million in grants that are crucial to eliminating child labor, combating human trafficking, and supporting children at risk of exploitation. An estimated 160 million children are engaged in child labor, with an estimated 79 million involved in hazardous labor according to the Child Labor Coalition. Terminated grants included a project in West Africa to stop 10-year-old children from being sent to harvest cacao beans and to end the a practice in Uzbekistan of forcing children to pick cotton.