WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has adjusted its strategy for downsizing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, presenting a revised proposal that would maintain a larger workforce than initially planned while still implementing substantial reductions.
The updated blueprint calls for reducing the bureau’s workforce from its current authorized level of 1,700 employees to approximately 550 staff members. This represents a significant change from the administration’s original goal of cutting personnel to around 200 workers.
Court filings and internal documents released this week detail the modified approach, which emerged from ongoing litigation between the CFPB’s employee union and Russell Vought, who serves as Trump’s budget director and acting head of the consumer protection agency.
The National Treasury Employees Union, representing bureau workers, has voiced strong opposition to the workforce reductions and pledged to fight any staffing changes.
“Vought’s insistence that CFPB can meet its statutory obligations with only one-third of the staff is laughable, and an insult to the intelligence of the judges. Everyone knows Vought doesn’t want CFPB to exist at all,” stated Cat Farman, who leads the CFPB’s union.
The staffing cuts would require federal court approval to move forward, as the union continues its legal challenge.
Trump administration officials defend the reductions as necessary due to budget constraints. Congressional lawmakers reduced the CFPB’s operating budget by nearly half through the One Big Beautiful Bill that Trump signed into law last year.
“It would be mathematically impossible to comply with the law without a workforce restructuring and reduction,” explained Geoffrey Gradler, the bureau’s deputy director.
If enacted, the proposed cuts would affect multiple divisions within the agency. The supervision unit, responsible for monitoring bank compliance with federal consumer protection and banking regulations, would lose approximately five out of every six positions. The enforcement division would see staff levels drop by roughly 80 percent.
Since Trump began his second term, the CFPB has largely ceased normal operations. Agency employees received instructions to halt their work shortly after the inauguration, with remaining activities focused primarily on reversing initiatives from the Biden administration and even some programs from Trump’s first presidency.
The consumer protection bureau became an early focus of the Department of Government Efficiency when Elon Musk led the initiative. Musk posted on social media platform X that the CFPB should “RIP” after DOGE personnel were assigned to the agency. The administration initially attempted to eliminate approximately 90 percent of the workforce, affecting around 1,500 employees, before a federal judge intervened to block the action.
