From her home in Iowa, Sabrina Brink has for days sought clarity about whether her job with the federal government is safe. A veteran, mother and wife of an Army officer, she has found purpose in helping colleagues at the General Services Administration as a human resources specialist while her husband serves at nearby Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois.
Trump’s crackdown on federal workforce alarms military families
The administration’s blunt exercise of power has proved uniquely disruptive for the numerous government personnel who do remote work to accommodate their spouses’ military careers.
February 5, 2025 The Washington Post
Their lives have been upended, she said, by the Trump administration’s swift, aggressive campaign to gut the federal workforce and end its reliance on remote workers like her.
“I’m not getting any information from my agency — but I don’t think they’re getting any information, either,” Brink said in an interview this week. She added: “It just feels like they’re bulldozing through this decision.”
President Donald Trump’s blunt exercise of power has proved uniquely disruptive for federal workers whose spouses serve in the military. Many sought their positions with full-remote status to accommodate the frequent moves their loved one’s profession demands, and they have been stunned and dismayed by how little thought the new administration appears to have given them.
The issue is fast coming to a head, as a Thursday deadline looms for federal employees to decide whether to take a buyout offer with vague assurances of pay through Sept. 30 — or hunker down and face the risk of being be laid off.
In interviews with The Washington Post, seven military spouses shared accounts similar to Brink’s, with most speaking on the condition of anonymity because of a fear of reprisal for being seen as criticizing the administration. The uncertainty has prompted congressional intervention, with a group of lawmakers, including at least one Republican, pressing for assurances that military families will be protected from Trump’s purge of the federal bureaucracy.
Reps. Rob Wittman (R-Virginia) and Eugene Vindman (D-Virginia) on Wednesday introduced legislation that would exempt military spouses who are federal employees and were eligible for remote work before Jan. 20 from any requirements to work in person. The bipartisan bill also requests that the comptroller general of the United States provide Congress with an accounting of military spouses whose jobs may be imperiled, their average commute if required to return to in-person work and the estimated economic impact.
The congressmen, whose districts include military installations, said many of their constituents are afraid that return-to-office orders mean they will need to give up their careers.
“The president, I know, wants to be supportive of military families, has talked about recruitment and retention,” said Wittman, who emphasized that his support for the legislation with Vindman, a key figure in Trump’s first impeachment years ago, is not intended to be a criticism of the administration’s efforts. “This is one thing that they can do to really help with that.”
Wittman said there is interest in the issue among other Republicans, too, and that he is working on a bipartisan letter to the Trump administration that reiterates the importance of providing an exception for military spouses to the return-to-work mandate.
Vindman, a retired Army officer, said that with service members, spouses and their children required to relocate every few years, a remote federal job is a way for military spouses to build a career with meaning and provide financial stability.
“Having a dual-income family is pretty much the standard now around the country, and that’s almost impossible for service members when they move every few years,” he said.
In a separate effort, 12 Democratic lawmakers called on Charles Ezell, the acting head of the Office of Personnel Management, to consider the spouses of U.S. troops, diplomats and others who work in national security as telework arrangements are stopped. The letter — spearheaded by Rep. Joaquin Castro (Texas) and Sens. Chris Van Hollen (Maryland) and Cory Booker (New Jersey) — warned OPM that “without clear and immediate guidance to the spouses of military, diplomatic and national security professionals, the federal government risks losing talented personnel and causing undue financial strain for their families.”
Castro said in an interview that he, too, has heard from numerous constituents who’ve said it will be “impossible” for them to comply with Trump’s return-to-work mandate given the commitments they and their spouses made to the country.
“This is a matter of livelihood for these families,” Castro said. “It’s not like they went on a long vacation and just want to telework.”
OPM could not be reached for comment. The Defense Department did not provide a response to several requests for comment.
The upheaval has left affected military families exasperated.
One military spouse who lives in Washington said it is not lost on her that while the Republican Party has portrayed itself as pro-family, the actions taken in recent days have threatened her quality of life. An Army veteran herself, she said she took a government job because she wanted stability and to continue serving. Her husband is deployed in the Middle East and “feels terrible that he’s not here” to help, the woman said. “He’s asked, ‘Should I be talking to somebody to try to come back?’”
A mother of three who is married to a member of the Air Force said that she has twice taken demotions in recent years to accommodate her husband’s military career. She now has a remote job with the Defense Department, an opportunity she leaped at because she was tired of having “to keep having to start over.”
“I chose public service for a reason, and it was to support people like my husband,” she said. “It’s not about how much money you make. It’s about being able to go home every day feeling good about what you did. And that’s what’s frustrating.”
One of the constituents who reached out to Vindman said she feels “hopeless and helpless.” As a federal employee whose husband is active-duty military, having her own career has helped give her a sense of identity outside of being a military spouse.
“I have a hard time understanding how this administration is pro-America, pro-military, yet is threatening the livelihood of the military family and the morale for that matter,” this person said.
A Navy spouse in Pensacola, Florida, said her remote job with the Defense Department has helped pay for her children’s sports and music lessons over the past decade, and created opportunities for her in locations where there were few comparable career options. If her family is forced to go back to one income, she said, they will struggle to make payments on a home-improvement loan they have.
“It’s a nice work-life balance thing that has been put in place,” she said of remote work. “Then all of a sudden, it’s like: ‘Nope! Let’s take this rug and pull it out from under you.’”
Across the country, on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state, another woman characterized her career as “vital” to providing for her family. She found federal work less than a year ago, she said, and hoped it would give her and her family long-term stability.
“We don’t live in a world anymore where living off of one income is an option,” she said. “Even with the government subsidy for day care … [the cost] was as much as my mortgage.”
After the sacrifices her family has made by serving in the military, to now have her job potentially taken away, she said, “feels like a slap in the face.”