Fairfax County and neighboring localities are feeling the impact of federal government workforce reductions and immigration enforcement, according to a recent regional survey.
The report released last Thursday (Sept. 24) from Gallup and the Greater Washington Community Foundation, titled “Voices of the Community: DC, Maryland, Virginia,” incorporated research on federal government disruptions on the region’s residents.
In Fairfax County and the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church, 49% of respondents said federal job cuts or furloughs negatively impacted their household. That’s slightly below the D.C. region’s average of 55%.
By comparison, 66% in D.C., 62% in Arlington County and Alexandria and 51% in Loudoun County reported negative impacts.
Researchers cited the regional economy’s strong ties to the federal government’s presence.
“Federal agencies, contractors, and the businesses and nonprofits that support them form the backbone of much of our regional economy,” the report stated. “As a result, the DMV has been uniquely affected by federal actions — including federal workforce reductions, deployment of the National Guard to patrol DC, increased immigration enforcement, and significant reductions in federal grants.”
According to the survey, 9% of Fairfax County and cities of Fairfax and Falls Church respondents said someone in their household utilized social services for the first time in the last year. The average was higher across the D.C. region as a whole (14%), D.C. (19%) and Prince George’s County, Md. (23%). Instances were also higher among residents with lower household incomes and among Black and Hispanic residents.
A share of residents reported impacts from increased immigration enforcement and law enforcement or military presence. In Fairfax County and the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church, 19% of respondents reported household impacts from immigration enforcement. Fifteen percent and 8% said the same about military activity and increased law enforcement, respectively.
Survey results came from a Feb. 9 to April 6 mail survey of about 2,800 adults in D.C., the counties of Fairfax, Loudoun, Arlington, Montgomery and Prince George’s and cities of Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church.
Despite living in one of the most affluent parts of the country, many in the greater D.C. area — which includes parts of Maryland and Virginia and is referred to as the DMV — now see a bleak local job market and rising costs. Some are even considering leaving the region.
Sam Trumbull once wrote public assistance policy to help people receiving food assistance, then needed public assistance for her family. Amanda Nataro won’t take personal effects to her new job, after being crushed by the sudden end of her last one. Nicoletta Barbera and her husband are considering leaving the area because of rising costs and lower salaries than they once had.
“It wasn’t just about our jobs being gone. It was really this awful ripple effect of all these lives and destinies really disrupted,” Nataro said.
The District of Columbia, which official figures show accounted for a fifth of the roughly 100,000 job losses in the region and is host to an ongoing deployment of the National Guard, has been particularly impacted. According to the survey, about two-thirds of D.C. residents said their household had been directly affected by the job cuts, one of the highest percentages in the region.
More affluent households were hit especially hard by the cuts, the survey found. A majority — 58% — of those in households with an annual income of $90,000 or more said they were impacted by the reductions, compared to 48% of lower-income households.
Trumbull earned over $130,000 annually at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. After DOGE came for her job, she took a deferred resignation in the second-round offering, under threat of a forthcoming USDA reorganization that wasn’t really a decent option. She only secured new, part-time employment a year later.
During that time, she had to take a forbearance on her mortgage. She applied for public assistance. She and her husband took home just $2,000 a month, she said, while amassing debt from their home ownership.
When jobs didn’t come through, she did some contract work and taught to “cobble together enough money to make sure my kids were supplied — cause you don’t get to stop buying diapers.”
“I don’t see a future where I can go back to not worrying about moving money around constantly” to cover bills, she said.
About one-third of DMV residents say they are “very” or “somewhat” worried about being able to pay their rent or mortgage, down from about half in 2023 following the economic troubles of the COVID pandemic. Renters, Black and Hispanic adults, and lower-income residents are particularly worried about housing payments.
Nataro, 42, and a single mom of two young children, asked her landlord for a rent reduction after she lost her job at USAID, one of DOGE’s first targets. She signed up for food stamps and unemployment assistance. She found work in academia quickly but took a substantial pay cut.
“It’s very humbling, because you know before that you’re paying all your bills and struggling but you’ve got enough to cover everything,” she said. Now, she has had to ask for help.
Rising cost of living was cited by 58% of respondents as a factor that would make them consider leaving the region, while 35% said job cuts or hiring freezes would drive the same decision.
