How many Northern Virginia residents have lost their jobs as part of federal cutbacks and their ripple effects on the economy? Nobody seems to know for sure — including members of the U.S. Senate.
“We’re still trying to get the right numbers,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) told the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments’ (COG) board of directors at a meeting last Wednesday (June 11).
Warner said the best figure he could come up with was 168,000 Virginia federal workers and contractors facing unemployment, but he quickly acknowledged that number came from an online source.
“Do not take that as gospel,” he said.
Warner used the appearance to press for unity among regional leaders in addressing cutbacks in personnel and programs planned or, in some cases, already implemented by the Trump administration.
Those in the middle class and below “are going to get whacked at a level I think most people don’t appreciate,” he said, speaking specifically about health-care costs.
Warner, who was elected to the Senate in 2008 after serving as Virginia’s governor, told regional leaders he had concerns about a federal debt now at levels previously unheard of.
But, he quickly added, the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are going about debt reduction the wrong way, while creating havoc in the process.
“We’re not going to get rid of our $37 trillion [in] debt by nickel-and-diming on food banks,” Warner said.
In fact, the Congressional Budget Office estimated in a report released last Thursday (June 12) that the federal budget bill passed in May by the Republican-led House of Representatives could increase the deficit by as much as $4.5 trillion if some tax changes, such as an end to taxes on tips, are made permanent.
Warner predicted that, when a final accounting takes place, efforts by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will have cost taxpayers money, not provided a savings.
Earlier this year, COG launched an online dashboard tracking data related to the federal workforce and providing resources to those facing layoffs.
Its data suggest Virginia is home to about 321,000 federal workers, roughly 10% of the overall state workforce. Across the D.C. region as a whole, those figures are about 400,000 and 17.3%, respectively.
The dashboard doesn’t include people who are connected to federal-government operations as contractors, and as Warner noted, concrete data mostly has yet to emerge on the overall impact of layoffs.
“We ought to do a better job of trying to document that,” he acknowledged.
Whatever the specific number may be, joblessness is on the rise in region, based on monthly data reported by the Virginia Employment Commission. As a result, a number of initiatives have been launched to support those seeking work.
Franconia District Supervisor Rodney Lusk, who chairs COG’s board of directors this year, said the region is pulling in the same direction with consistent messaging about the importance of the federal workforce.
“We look forward to the continued partnership” with local members of Congress, he said.
Warner said COG could provide some self-help by getting on the phone to local government officials in more conservative-leaning parts of Virginia and Maryland.
Try to get them to contact their own members of Congress, he advised.
“We have to reach out to our Republican friends,” Warner said.
Clark Mercer, COG’s executive director, said every member of Congress representing the metro area has a standing invitation to speak to the organization’s board of directors.
