By Adam Pagnucco.
President Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to freeze and cut federal funding are starting to take a toll on Maryland’s economy. His first target was the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which supports disaster recovery and economic development in other countries around the world. He is now expanding his target list to include funds distributed by the departments of Transportation, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services and Agriculture as well as other agencies. His assault on the National Institutes of Health is particularly worrisome to MoCo, where it is headquartered. Hovering above all of this is general uncertainty over all federal funding as it seems nothing is immune to Trump’s mayhem.
Some local contractors are starting to throw in the towel.
The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act requires “employers with 100 or more employees (generally not counting those who have worked less than six months in the last 12 months and those who work an average of less than 20 hours a week) to provide at least 60 calendar days advance written notice of a plant closing and mass layoff affecting 50 or more employees at a single site of employment.” Maryland’s Department of Labor maintains a list of WARN notices. That list is starting to show the impact of Trump’s actions against federal funding.
These federal contractors based in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties have announced mass layoffs so far in February. Remember, folks – this is only three weeks of data.
Rockville, MD
Mass layoff, no recall, effective 4/1/25 – 241 employees
Contracts with USAID, NOAA, CDC, HUD
Creative Associates International, Inc.
Chevy Chase, MD
Mass layoff, no recall, effective 2/1/25 – 37 employees
Contracts with USAID
Bethesda, MD
Mass layoff, temporary, effective 2/3/25 – 382 employees
Mass layoff, temporary, effective 2/17/25 – 124 employees
Contracts with USAID
Silver Spring, MD
Mass layoff, no recall, effective 2/12/25 – 194 employees
Contracts with USAID, GSA
Peraton’s Environmental Test & Integration Services III (ETIS III)
Greenbelt, MD
Mass layoff, no recall, effective 3/31/25 – 123 employees
Contracts with NASA
Science Systems and Applications, Inc. (SSAI)
Lanham, MD
Mass layoff, no recall, effective 4/8/25 – 148 employees
Contracts with NASA, NOAA, Department of Agriculture, NIH, others
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Many employment reductions are not captured by WARN notices, especially those by employers with less than 100 employees. And contractor layoffs come on top of terminations of federal employees, of which there have been thousands so far.
It’s hard to quantify the cumulative job impact at this moment because local economic data contains long lag times prior to release. For example, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ county employment series contains data through June 2024 at this writing. We will likely not learn about 2025 county employment until next year. Another complication is the cancellation of numerous data series by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, which began before Trump took office. As Trump continues to cut federal agencies, we should not be surprised if other data series are reduced or cancelled by BLS, BEA and Census.
What is clear is that Trump’s actions are causing immediate damage to state and local economies throughout the Washington region. Policymakers should keep that in mind as they write their budgets this spring.