Sequestration Budget Cuts Data: Which VA Counties Have the Most Federal Employees?
More than 19,400 employees across Fairfax County could be hit hard by sequestration.
Since Congress failed to reach a last-minute agreement on the sequester Friday, the huge budget cuts slated to kick in have the potential to affect more than 19,400 federal employees working in Fairfax County.
President Barack Obama imposed Friday $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts to military and domestic program. Those cuts would be the start of more than $1 trillion in cuts over the next decade.
The numbers here show the federal employees in Virginia by county or independent city in 2012, according to the latest figures from Eye on Washington, a DC-based lobbying firm that tracks federal employment. It compiles the data from the Office of Personnel Management, Federal Employment Statistics and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Click on your county in the graph above to see area-specific data.
While much has been written on how the current sequestration battle in Washington could affect the national economy, these numbers show sequestration on a local level.
But sequestration won’t only affect government employees and people working for government contractors, according to the White House, which released a state-by-state breakdown of sequestration’s affects.
Sequestration could affect students, unemployed people, victims of domestic violence and the environment, according to the data for Virginia.
Sequestration’s hit on Virginia could total more than $838 million, though ripple effects throughout Virginia’s economy could drive that number up.
The full effects of the March 1 cuts won't be felt immediately. The government is required to alert impacted agencies of what cuts are to be made and what workers are to be furloughed.
It should be noted, however, that even the suggestion of cuts and the notification process itself could be felt in some community economies. Uncertainty for federal workers means they are likely to tighten their belts until they see what the cuts look like – and how long they last. It means those workers will likely spend less money at local shops and restaurants.
In some communities there may be only a handful of federal workers and the impacts may be small. But, as these figures show, in many areas of Northern Virginia, federal employees numbers in the thousands and in those places the sequestration could become a more significant pain, particularly if it drags on for weeks or months.
(U.S. Postal Service Employees are excluded in this count. The USPS receives no tax dollars in its operations and would not be affected by the sequestration cuts.)
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