How Trump’s NIH layoffs upended one probationary staffer’s life: “We are important and we do important work”

Washington — Last month, Katie Sandlin uprooted her life in Carbon Hill, Alabama, a town of 2,000, to work at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, outside Washington, D.C.

“I wiped out my savings account, I maxed out my credit card, I had to take out a loan,” Sandlin told CBS News.

But she called her job as an education outreach specialist an opportunity of a lifetime, educating communities about NIH research. 

“People like me, where I’m from, rural Alabama, like, these kind of jobs don’t happen to people like me,” Sandlin said. “You know, my entire town, they were all rooting for me.”

Three weeks later, before she even unpacked her D.C. apartment, Sandlin became one of the thousands of federal probationary workers to be fired as part of President Trump’s efforts to reduce the size of the federal government.

Probationary workers usually have less than one year experience, and in some cases less than two years. They have fewer protections from layoffs, making them easier to terminate.

“Now, I’m unemployed, I have a ton of debt, and I’m also losing my health insurance, and I have, like many Americans, a chronic condition that requires me to take medication,” said Sandlin, who adds that the idea of getting fired “never crossed my mind.”

Sandlin says her supervisors “made it clear that I was not being terminated because of anything that I had done.”

An official with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which NIH is a part of, sent Sandlin a letter which read, in part: “Unfortunately, the Agency finds that you are not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge and skills do not fit the Agency’s current needs, and your performance has not been adequate to justify further employment at the Agency.”

Sandling said receiving the letter “really upset me, because it felt like it wasn’t truthful. My boss, her boss, and even his boss, all said that that was not true.”

The CBS News Data Team found that at the Veterans Health Administration, which implements the healthcare program for vets, probationary workers account for 30% of the staff.

At the U.S. Department of Agriculture, probationary workers make up 19% of the branch that performs food safety inspections, while 29% of workers in the Transportation Security Administration are probationary, CBS News found.

So far, about 2,000 probationary workers at NIH have lost their jobs.

“We are important and we do important work,” Sandlin said. “We’re impactful. And if you have questions or concerns about federal workers, ask one.”

Weijia Jiang

Weijia Jiang is the senior White House correspondent for CBS News based in Washington, D.C. Jiang has covered the White House beat since 2018including the transitions between presidential administrations. In 2023, Jiang won an Emmy Award for her contributions to “CBS Mornings.”