Largest Mass Resignation in US History as 100k Federal Workers Quit • Hacker News Board

Re: Largest Mass Resignation in US History as 100k Federal Workers Quit

#131

Post by krainboltgreene » Tue, Sep 30, 2025, 5:13 PM UTC

oldandboring wrote: post #52

krainboltgreene wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same thought process behind layoffs and is categorically, scientifically, absurd. It doesn't pan out that you "only let go of the people you don't want" and it turns out those people you let go signal to the people you absolutely want that they should leave.

I don't support what the Trump administration is doing. But saying it's "categorically, scientifically, absurd" to lay people off is some next-level stuff. I can guarantee to anyone reading this, that this person has never owned a business with any kind of significant overhead.

Come on, it's 2025, you really think no one has studied the effects of layoffs on a company?

https://hbr.org/2018/05/layoffs-that-dont-break-your-company

> For instance, a study of one Fortune 500 tech firm done by Teresa Amabile at Harvard Business School discovered that after the firm cut its staff by 15%, the number of new inventions it produced fell 24%. In addition, layoffs can rupture ties between salespeople and customers. Researchers Paul Williams, M. Sajid Khan, and Earl Naumann have found that customers are more likely to defect after a company conducts layoffs. Then there’s the effect on a company’s reputation: E. Geoffrey Love and Matthew S. Kraatz of University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign found that companies that did layoffs saw a decline in their ranking on Fortune’s list of most admired companies.

> A 2002 study by Magnus Sverke and Johnny Hellgren of Stockholm University and Katharina Näswall of University of Canterbury found that after a layoff, survivors experienced a 41% decline in job satisfaction, a 36% decline in organizational commitment, and a 20% decline in job performance.

> In a 2012 review of 20 studies of companies that had gone through layoffs, Deepak Datta at the University of Texas at Arlington found that layoffs had a neutral to negative effect on stock prices in the days following their announcement. Datta also discovered that after layoffs a majority of companies suffered declines in profitability, and a related study showed that the drop in profits persisted for three years. And a team of researchers from Auburn University, Baylor University, and the University of Tennessee found that companies that have layoffs are twice as likely to file for bankruptcy as companies that don’t have them.

It also just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

Also, there's no reason to cast aspersions. Feel free to actually engage anytime you want.

Re: Largest Mass Resignation in US History as 100k Federal Workers Quit

#132

Post by Steltek » Tue, Sep 30, 2025, 5:32 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #112

ethbr1 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also important to highlight the origins of modern US civil service (read: the Wilson+ era you're referencing) in the anti-Conkling/spoils Congressional factions and presidents of the late 19th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Breeds_(politics)#Setback... As recently as 1880s the US was still assigning important civil service roles to whomever donated the most money to election campaigns. The 1880s - 1…

There is expertise, but there is also ideology. To use the plane analogy everyone likes: the pilot should use his expertise to fly the plane, but he doesn’t get to choose where the plane is going! When you “insulate” the civil service from politics, what you end up doing is privileging the ideology and political goals of civil servants over those of voters.

But to continue your analogy, the pilot is also totally correct in refusing to crash the plane into the ground or jettison passengers out the door because they're brown.

The current state of affairs is not some mere disagreement of ideology.

Re: Largest Mass Resignation in US History as 100k Federal Workers Quit

#133

Post by rayiner » Tue, Sep 30, 2025, 5:35 PM UTC

Steltek wrote: post #132

rayiner wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is expertise, but there is also ideology. To use the plane analogy everyone likes: the pilot should use his expertise to fly the plane, but he doesn’t get to choose where the plane is going! When you “insulate” the civil service from politics, what you end up doing is privileging the ideology and political goals of civil servants over those of voters.

But to continue your analogy, the pilot is also totally correct in refusing to crash the plane into the ground or jettison passengers out the door because they're brown. The current state of affairs is not some mere disagreement of ideology.

No, this is a choice between flying to Boise or flying to San Francisco.

Re: Largest Mass Resignation in US History as 100k Federal Workers Quit

#134

Post by mdhb » Tue, Sep 30, 2025, 6:11 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #133

Steltek wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But to continue your analogy, the pilot is also totally correct in refusing to crash the plane into the ground or jettison passengers out the door because they're brown. The current state of affairs is not some mere disagreement of ideology.

No, this is a choice between flying to Boise or flying to San Francisco.

Never a bad decision that you don’t seem to rush to the comments section to defend.

Re: Largest Mass Resignation in US History as 100k Federal Workers Quit

#135

Post by rayiner » Tue, Sep 30, 2025, 6:47 PM UTC

mdhb wrote: post #134

rayiner wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is a choice between flying to Boise or flying to San Francisco.

Never a bad decision that you don’t seem to rush to the comments section to defend.

I think extending Trump’s tax cuts is a terrible policy, do you want to talk about that?

Re: Largest Mass Resignation in US History as 100k Federal Workers Quit

#136

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 30, 2025, 6:55 PM UTC

SR2Z wrote: post #95

rayiner wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first point requires an additional layer. The modern administrative state has its origins in Woodrow Wilson ideology of scientific governance. Wilson didn’t like democracy and wasn’t much of a fan of the constitution: https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/the-study-of-ad... . A consequence of centralizing governance in a giant federal bureaucracy is that it’s become dominated by one party: https://www.gove…

It will be run by the party that prefers bigger government... unless you remember how much the current administration has expanded the deficit and DHS. Also, if you're saying that the past 100 years of American history, with all its various technocrats, was the result of a single ideology operating the government... maybe that ideology actually works pretty well?

[deleted]

Re: Largest Mass Resignation in US History as 100k Federal Workers Quit

#137

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 30, 2025, 7:02 PM UTC

ndiddy wrote: post #114

timr wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not terrified. Just to put some perspective on this, per Pew [1], the federal workforce excluding the postal service (which has actually shrunk as a semi-private employer) has grown by about 1% per year since 2000. As of 2024, it was at 2.4M people. The federal workforce is dramatically bigger than it was even a few years ago [2]. Moreover, the vast majority of federal workers don't have anything to do with the k…

If you zoom out ( https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-work-for-the-f... ), the size of the federal workforce has been at around 2.7-3 million people since the late 1960s, while the US population has gone from ~198 million in 1967 to ~343 million in 2025. We've gone from 14.39 federal employees per 1,000 people in 1967 to 8.78 federal employees per 1,000 people in 2024. Given that many of these employees do…

[deleted]

Re: Largest Mass Resignation in US History as 100k Federal Workers Quit

#138

Post by hypeatei » Tue, Sep 30, 2025, 7:02 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #117

txru wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> then it’s completely unsurprising it will become dominated by the party that prefers bigger government. I think you've assumed the conclusion here. One could equally say that if one party becomes overrepresented by people with higher education, that party will become overrepresented in any administrative position. > Aaron Burr I find myself more and more often in the position of having to look back many decades for…

> I think you've assumed the conclusion here. One could equally say that if one party becomes overrepresented by people with higher education, that party will become overrepresented in any administrative position I think that’s true! It’s another reason why the federal workforce has come to be dominated by one party. But both point to the same result. > I don't think many people will look at Comey's prosecution and s…

> It’s not. It’s tit-for-tat:

So you're admitting that Trump is weaponizing the DOJ to get revenge on his opponents? How does a NY court and jury of his peers finding Trump guilty of a felony justify that?

  The facts of the case have been covered at length (including by us in a detailed chronology), and the grand jury’s indictment and accompanying Statement of Facts speak for themselves. The prosecution has said that this case is not just about an affair and hush money payments, neither of which are illegal. Rather, the DA has explained the case concerns an attempt by Trump to interfere in the outcome of the 2016 presidential election outcome.[0]


  The hush money arrangement with Daniels occurred just after the Access Hollywood scandal, where Trump boasted about committing sexual assaults, and was finalized on October 27, 2016, twelve days before the election. As described in the Statement of Facts, Trump initially directed Cohen to delay the payments to Daniels until after the election, “because at that point it would not matter if the story became public.” However, “with pressure mounting and the election approaching,” Trump ultimately agreed to the payoff.[0]

0: https://www.justsecurity.org/93916/guide-manhattan-trump-tri...

Re: Largest Mass Resignation in US History as 100k Federal Workers Quit

#139

Post by rayiner » Tue, Sep 30, 2025, 7:05 PM UTC

bigbadfeline wrote: post #125

rayiner wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn’t donations be a reasonable proxy? 3,000 samples is more than enough to have a statistically significant analysis of a population of 100,000.

> 3,000 samples is more than enough to have a statistically significant analysis of a population of 100,000. It's not a valid sample because it's not a random selection - statistical sampling isn't only about sample size. One reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from the above numbers is that the Democrats in government are less stingy about donations, or that the Republicans there don't really like the GOP and ar…

I think that’s an odd theory.

Re: Largest Mass Resignation in US History as 100k Federal Workers Quit

#140

Post by at-fates-hands » Tue, Sep 30, 2025, 7:08 PM UTC

buran77 wrote: post #101

at-fates-hands wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> That's the intention of this administration. Destroy any service that the government could provide until people can genuinely think the government is useless. Not really sure ANY government service runs well. There are maybe one or two but as a whole government run anything never seems to be done well or at a decent cost. Just scan the comments about the massive overspending and poor service we already get as tax…

> Not really sure ANY government service runs well I don't think you have perspective on that. What I'm telling you is that it can be a lot worse. I don't think you realize how much less accountable any private company is and that if you are ever ruled by one you will effectively be under a very abusive dictatorship, for all intents and purposes. Random example. Google can cut you off from everything Google related a…

>> It's very easy to complaint when you've never seen the worse alternatives.

I have relatives that fled the USSR during the heights of communism. I have played soccer with guys who came from South American countries that were mired in Civil War. Two of my best friends fled South Asia during the Pol Pot regime.

Its interesting you tell me I have no perspective without even knowing who I am or what I've experienced in my life. To judge someone like this is pretty offensive.

I'm keenly aware of how dictatorships work. I've heard and seen what an abusive government is capable of. I have yet to see the abuses people I know fled from happen here in the US.

>> How often does the Government do that to you?

Your short term memory must not be very good:

"If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor."

"If you like your plan, you can keep your plan."

"Take this vaccine or you're going to lose your job."

"This is the govt, you need to remove posts that we don't like."

"We couldn't come to an agreement on a budget so the government is shut down until further notice."

https://mailomg.com/2025/09/17/opinion-the-good-the-bad-and-...

With a second attempt to rectify PAEA’s errors, Congress successfully granted a financial reform of $57 billion dollars through the Postal Service Reform Act in FY 2022. Soon after, Postmaster General DeJoy announced his “Delivering for America Plan” (DFA)

Delivery performance suffered as well, as the new consolidated facilities far underperformed the prior structure, leading to enormous cost overruns and overtime. The infrastructure for new EV delivery vehicles simply did not exist, and the selected manufacturer fell behind implementation times as each facility needed to be retrofitted for EV charging.