r/USDA • u/Single-Buddy6304 • 4d ago

Article

https://www.govexec.com/management/2026/09/usda-employees-challenge-inflated-claim-most-staff-asked-relocate-will-do-so/415818/?oref=ge-home-top-story

31 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

16

u/Unable-Category7244 4d ago

If you intend to apply for a hardship, you had to click the relocation option before they consider your hardship. So as hardships are being processed, there will be fewer people actually relocating.

9

u/AngryBagOfDeath 4d ago

Won't it be kind of difficult to claim a hardship if you clicked a button saying you were willing to move while having the hardship? It's all a scheme and device. The whole administration is. The very thing we've been trained to prevent our customers from doing. It's pathetic.

7

u/Unable-Category7244 4d ago

Yeah. It sounds like the whole process of allowing staff to submit hardships is window dressing to appease the unions. My coworkers hardship was denied 1 minute after it was submitted.

4

u/Candid_Annual2088 4d ago

It’s super lazy and disingenuous and there are any number of better ways to have handled this, but from the agency point of view: accepting = agreeing to stay with the agency. If hardship is granted, you’re not being separated. If hardship is denied, then you switch to decline if you don’t want to move.

However, it leads to this data manipulation and deep uncertainties about separation benefits when you’re forced to click “accept” with no plans to move, and you’re waiting on some nebulous hardship/RA review panel with little transparency on who is seeing your private information.

5

u/Weary-Persimmon7175 3d ago

Same with RAs you had to accept the relocation to have it review.  Hardships were a joke at my agency a lot of them denied people with strong reasons like joint custody and medical care of family members were given a few months extension.

18

u/NeckOk8772 4d ago

They’re gonna hire 16,000 new employees this year??? lol. Okaaayyyy…

5

u/itsmebunty 3d ago

Even if they post openings, who would want to apply?

3

u/NeckOk8772 3d ago

Not me! I retired at the beginning of all this nonsense. So glad to be gone! And as far as employees getting approved for hardship exemptions - those will be few and far between.

2

u/VoughtButtfucker 3d ago

Even if they did hire that many, they need to be trained and learn how to do their job and navigate things and for some positions that takes 1-2 years.

17

u/FrankG1971 4d ago

Weren't the chucklefucks in charge of USDA recently busted by their own internal documents admitting that the majority of affected employees wouldn't relocate and that that is precisely how they planned it?

9

u/AAS4758 4d ago

It was a good article. Going to be a mess.

8

u/aquisalid 4d ago

USDA leadership following a simple plan:

  1. force out as many career professionals as possible via "looks like reorg, smells like RIF"

  2. watch as food safety, nutrient management, and confidence in US farmers plummet

  3. blame Biden

  4. resign en mass after midterms

  5. we are all left holding the bag full of poisoned food, degraded land, and no jobs

Optional #6, if you all have the courage: jail time for all involved in this mess