The Trump administration is asking a federal appeals court for permission to reduce the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s current workforce by more than half, according to a court filing.
The CFPB had 1,758 employees in 2024, which represented a 5% increase from the year before, according to the agency’s annual financial report for that year. CFPB Acting Director Russell Vought has since sought to significantly reduce the bureau’s headcount, prompting a lawsuit from the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents bureau employees.
In a detailed filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C., attorneys representing the Trump administration requested permission to move forward with a reduction-in-force plan to shrink the CFPB’s current staffing from 1,174 to 556 employees. The reduction would be consistent with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which reduced by half the statutory cap on the amount of funding available to CFPB from the Federal Reserve, they wrote. The reduced headcount would also meet the Trump administration’s directive to maximize the efficiency and productivity of the agency while fulfilling its statutory duties.
“The [reduction-in-force] plan CFPB has now announced reflects a significant downsizing of the bureau from its operation under the prior administration — one that CFPB has determined nonetheless ‘allow[s] CFPB to continue meeting its statutory obligations,’” they wrote.
In a separate court filing in another lawsuit, Vought announced his intention to request $75.8 million from the Fed to fund the bureau through the end of June. He disagreed that the bureau needed even that much, but said he was making the request to satisfy a court order.
