Trump HHS closes the office that defines poverty limits for 80 million

Trump HHS closes the office that defines poverty limits for 80 million

The layoffs of President Donald Trump in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) concerned the entire office that the federal poverty guidelines defined. These guidelines determine whether millions of Americans are entitled to health programs such as medicaid, food aid, childcare and other services, former employees reported.

layoffs without warning

The small team with technical data knowledge worked in the office of the deputy minister of planning and evaluation (Aspe). Their termination was part of a greater restructuring in the HHS, which came without warning and raised the officials why they were "dismantled", which was in the bureaucracy language for "reduction of the staff".

uncertain future for poverty guidelines

"I suspect that offices were released that had the word 'data' or 'statistics' in their name," said a released employee, a social scientist whose name is kept anonymous for fear of reprisals. "It seemed random as far as we can say." One of the dismissed was Kendall Swenson, who had led the development of poverty guidelines for many years and was considered the competence center on this topic.

cuts in helping for low -income families

The closure of the office could lead to cuts in the next year with support for low-income families, unless the Trump administration restores the positions or transfers its tasks differently, Robin Ghertner, explained the dismissed head of the Department of Data and Technica analysis, which monitored the guidelines.

Important functions of the poverty guidelines

The poverty guidelines are "needed by many people and programs", according to Timothy Smeeding, professor of economics at the La Folette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin. "If you think of someone who has been released and should be stopped, Swenson would be an obvious choice," he added.

The role of Aspe

According to a budget law of 1981, HHS is obliged to adapt the poverty boundaries from the Census Bureau annually, to adapt them to inflation and create guidelines that are used by agencies and states to determine who is entitled to different types of help. There is a special method for creating the guidelines that include adjustments and calculations, explained Ghertner. Swenson and three other employees prepare the numbers independently and checked them together before they were released every year in January.

Missing transfer of knowledge

Everyone in Ghertner's office was informed without warning that he will be sent to the administrative vacation by June 1st until the employment relationship officially ended. "There is literally no one in the government who knows how to calculate the guidelines," he said. "And since we are all locked out of our computers, we cannot teach anyone how to calculate them."

Merging of offices and decline in the number of employees

According to a former employee, the Aspe had about 140 employees and now only has about 40. The restructuring in the HHS led to a merger with the agency for health research and quality (AHRQ), whose number of employees has dropped from 275 to around 80, according to a former Ahrq officer who wanted to remain anonymous.

reactions to the layoffs

HHS has explained that around 10,000 employees were released and the total number of employees through other measures, such as a program for promoting early standards, was reduced by around 20,000. However, the authority has not published details on the cuts carried out and did not provide any specific dismissed employees.

urgent need for action

"These employees were informed that they could not come into their offices, so there was no exchange of knowledge," said Wendell Primus, who worked in Aspe during the Clinton administration. "They had no time to train someone or transfer data."

demographic effect of the poverty guidelines

protection for low -income families

One of eight Americans is dependent on the supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food brands, and 40 % of newborns and their mothers receive food aid through the Women, Infants, and Children program, which is also based on the federal poverty border.

integrity of the HHS program

former employees of the office emphasized that they were not unfaithful to the president, but understood that their tasks were to support the goals of the administration. "We tried to support the Maha agenda," said the social scientist and referred to Kennedy's "Make America Healthy Again" concept. "Even if it did not match our personal worldviews, we wanted to be useful."

kff health news is a national news office that produces comprehensive journalism for health issues and one of the main operating programs by kff is-the independent source for research, surveys and journalism in the field of health policy.