The $11 billion HHS couldn't cut. The 20,000 jobs it could.
Summary
In March 2025, HHS moved to cancel $11 billion in public health grants to states in a single day. States sued, and a court has kept that money flowing ever since. The 20,000 HHS jobs eliminated the same month — including 2,400 at the CDC — needed no injunction to disappear.
Follow the money
On March 24, 2025, sent termination notices to state and local health departments nationwide, cutting off COVID-era grants for tracking infectious disease, running immunizations, staffing labs, and funding mental-health and substance-abuse block grants — about $11 billion in total, "for cause," on the stated grounds that the pandemic was over. A week later, 23 states and D.C. sued, led by Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, whose own state had four CDC grants worth about $31 million cut overnight.
View data as table
| Rhode Island | $31M | RI Attorney General |
|---|---|---|
| Washington | $125M | state confirmation to Fierce Healthcare |
| North Carolina | $230M | states' complaint, via CBS News |
| New York | $400M | states' complaint, via CBS News |
A federal judge in Rhode Island issued a temporary restraining order on April 3, 2025, then converted it into a preliminary injunction on May 16, 2025, ordering to keep the money flowing while the case proceeds. filed a notice confirming compliance four days later. It stayed that way: as of the most recent status report on June 2, 2026, the case remains stayed with the injunction still in effect, both sides having filed joint motions to keep extending the pause rather than litigate it to a final judgment. Fourteen months on, the $11 billion has neither been cut nor formally restored by settlement — it is simply frozen in place by a court order neither party wants to test on appeal.
Follow the people
The workforce cut needed none of that. On March 27, 2025, three days after the grant terminations, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a restructuring that took the department from 82,000 to 62,000 full-time employees — 20,000 people, combining employees who had already left through the Fork in the Road buyout and early retirement with a new, separate reduction in force of 10,000 positions. The department's own fact sheet itemized where 7,400 of those RIF positions landed.
View data as table
| FDA | 3,500 | RIF positions |
|---|---|---|
| CDC | 2,400 | RIF positions |
| NIH | 1,200 | RIF positions |
| CMS | 300 | RIF positions |
| Other HHS divisions | 2,600 | not itemized by HHS |
The absorbed the largest single cut, 3,500 positions, though said none of it touched drug, device, or food reviewers and inspectors. The lost 2,400. No court order paused any of it, no state attorney general had standing to sue over it, and the restructuring also consolidated the department's divisions from 28 down to 15, folding the 's occupational safety institute and other agencies into a new Administration for a Healthy America. projected the changes would save $1.8 billion a year.
Put the two numbers next to each other and the shape of the year becomes clear. The money survived because 23 state attorneys general had legal standing to challenge a grant termination in federal court and did. The people didn't, because a reduction in force is a personnel action, not a funding action — nobody has the standing to sue an agency for the size of its own org chart.
The takeaway
- A grant can be sued over. A staffing decision, in practice, can't. The $11 billion states stood to lose is still flowing, fourteen months into an injunction neither side has pushed to a final ruling. The 20,000 jobs cut the same week are gone for good.
- The agency that inspects and tracks disease got smaller regardless. 2,400 positions were eliminated on schedule even as a federal court was actively blocking a separate attempt to cut the 's grant funding to states.
- "Frozen" isn't the same as "resolved." Neither side has let the grants case go to final judgment — both keep extending the stay, leaving the $11 billion in a legal holding pattern rather than a settled outcome.
Dollar and staffing figures reflect the actions and court filings as reported through mid-2026; litigation over the grant terminations remains open and the injunction could still be lifted, appealed, or settled.
Sources
- Rhode Island Attorney General, press release on State of Colorado et al. v. — Rhode Island's $31 million in terminated grants and the lawsuit's filing. riag.ri.gov
- Washington Attorney General's Office — confirms the $11 billion nationwide figure and the April 3, 2025 court order restoring funding. atg.wa.gov
- Fierce Healthcare — Washington state's $125 million exposure and background on the March 24, 2025 termination notices. fiercehealthcare.com
- CBS News — North Carolina's ($230M) and New York's ($400M) exposure, and details of the 23-state, April 1, 2025 lawsuit. cbsnews.com
- Georgetown University Health Law Litigation Tracker, State of Colorado et al. v. — case timeline, the May 16, 2025 preliminary injunction, and current status as of June 2, 2026. litigationtracker.law.georgetown.edu
- NPR, reporting on the restructuring fact sheet — the 82,000-to-62,000 workforce reduction and the per-agency RIF breakdown (, , , ). npr.org
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The Department of Health and Human Services made two moves in the same week of March 2025. It tried to claw back $11 billion in COVID-era public health grants from every state health department in the country, effective immediately. And it eliminated 20,000 of its own jobs. One of those moves ran straight into federal court and has been stuck there for more than a year. The other one just happened.