WASHINGTON — Fear, anxiety and devastation grip Alabama federal workers as the Department of Government Efficiency works to shrink government and cut employees, one worker said Tuesday.
Chelsy Lyons has worked at the Social Security Administration office in Birmingham for 17 years. She is part of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2206. She was the guest of Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham, for President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday to show Sewell’s solidarity with the state’s federal workers.
Lyons became emotional as she recounted what these past few weeks have been like for her as a federal worker grappling with concerns over DOGE.
“It’s pulling breath from my body,” Lyons told Alabama Daily News. “We are traumatized. We are devastated. The work that we do, all of us, is mission critical work.”
During Trump’s first month and a half in office, Elon Musk and DOGE have already targeted multiple federal agencies in an attempt to cut “waste, fraud, and abuse” and save taxpayers’ money. However, Sewell said that the way DOGE cuts are occurring is putting federal workers and those who benefit from their services at risk.
“I just think that it’s important that the narrative that’s out there that somehow federal employees are not hard working is simply not true,” Sewell told ADN. “And behind every cut that this president is making is not just a service that’s being rendered, but it’s also our livelihood that’s being impaired.”
Federal workers have received two emails asking them to report five things they’ve done in a week. Lyons said that task is just one example of how the DOGE efforts are taking workers’ time away from helping beneficiaries.
“You have people right now waiting on disability payments while they have us wasting countless hours of doing a pointless five point bulletin on what we’ve done for the week,” Lyons said.
Lyons said Social Security beneficiaries are also fearful, even sometimes in tears on the phone, concerned about what could happen to their benefits. Trump has previously said Social Security and Medicaid won’t be touched, but the House Republicans’ budget blueprint leaves room for spending cuts to health care programs.
Sewell said her office has been inundated with calls from Alabamians scared of losing their jobs. She said she also wants an efficient government, but not at the expense of quickly cutting federal workers and programs.
“This is an opportunity during this (speech) to highlight essential employees such as federal workers, and what they do every day,” Sewell said.
The Social Security Administration is at the center of DOGE cuts with plans to cut roughly 7,000 more workers. Lyons said the “fear is through the roof” on how these planned cuts could shake out in Alabama.
Sewell and Lyons said they want to see a plan for what comes next for the federal workers at risk of losing their jobs and those that rely on those workers for services, such as Social Security and disability insurance.
“We just need to know that somebody cares,” Lyons said. “We need to know that they care about if we eat, if we keep the lights on, if the beneficiaries are able to put food on their tables.”