By Adam Pagnucco.
Last week, the Brookings Institution released a report on the early impacts of federal government cutbacks on the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia (DMV) region’s economy. At the regional level, here are Brookings’s key takeaways.
- Since January 2025, the DMV region has shed federal jobs at a faster rate than the nation, while private sector job growth has plateaued.
- The DMV region’s unemployment rate has increased at a significantly higher pace than the nation’s, with the share of unemployed suburban workers growing the most.
- After a strong year of venture capital activity, venture capital flows into the DMV region have slowed dramatically since January 2025, while continuing to grow nationally.
- The number of homes for sale in the DMV region is up by 64% since last June, far surpassing the rate of change nationally and in other major metro areas.
- Data on the DMV region’s popularity with business and leisure visitors show mixed signs of resilience and potential softness.
- Both violent and property crime incidence are down year-over-year in the DMV region.
- More households in the DMV region are showing signs of financial distress.
This makes sense. Our region’s economy is more dependent on federal jobs and spending than almost any other place in America. Leaders in every local jurisdiction are worried about this – and especially what the future holds over the next three years of the Trump administration.
What’s even more interesting is the jurisdiction-specific information inside Brookings’s DMV Monitor. Here, Brookings tracks several key economic indicators for up to 11 jurisdictions in the region: the District of Columbia; Charles, Montgomery and Prince George’s counties in Maryland; and Alexandria City and Arlington, Fairfax, Fauquier, Loudoun, Prince William and Stafford counties in Virginia. Not every jurisdiction is tracked on every measure, but it’s still as comprehensive – and recent – as any other reported data. The data tracks changes in these indicators from June 2024 through June 2025. That gives us a year-to-year comparison, with seasonality removed, of the pre-Trump and post-Trump worlds.
The DMV Monitor chronicles regionwide suffering on most measures. That said, MoCo often shows up as one of the worst-hit jurisdictions. Here are the measures on which MoCo fares worst or second-worst.
Jobs
In terms of total jobs, private jobs and federal jobs, MoCo had the worst percentage losses of the 11 tracked jurisdictions from June 2024 through June 2025. How many of those private jobs were tied to federal contracting?
Federal Obligations
Brookings defines federal obligations as “Legally-binding funds committed to recipients through federally-awarded grants, contracts, loans, and cooperative agreements.” MoCo had the biggest 12-month percentage loss of any tracked jurisdiction.
Job Postings
MoCo had the second-worst percentage loss in job postings with a 7.8% decline. Only Fauquier County, with a 34.7% loss, did worse than we did.
Mass Layoff Notifications
Brookings only tracked four jurisdictions on change in notifications for closures or layoffs by qualified employers under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act in the year ended June 2025. Here is how those jurisdictions fared.
Fairfax County: -59.7%
Prince George’s County: -38.4%
District of Columbia: +259.9%
Montgomery County: +618.9%
Hotel Revenue per Available Room
MoCo saw a 10.3% drop in hotel revenue per available room in the year ended June 2025, the worst in the region.
Active Residential Listings
From June 2024 through June 2025, MoCo saw an increase of 99.6% in active for-sale residential listings. This was second only to Stafford County (up 105.8%). This may be a good thing because it means that more houses are available for buyers. However…
Median Residential Listing Price
Over the year ended June 2025, MoCo saw a 7.3% drop in median residential listing price. Only Alexandria (-15.8%) had a bigger decline.
These last two stats tell a good news/bad news story. MoCo and the rest of the region have seen tight for-sale inventories and low days on market over the last few years, leading to bidding wars and escalating home prices. If those factors ease, that’s welcome news for home buyers. However, if the cause is generalized economic weakness, it may eventually show up in slow growth or even declines in the assessable property base. That would cause budget headaches for the county government and – of course! – calls for property tax hikes. It’s too soon to tell if that scenario will take hold.
There are a few other measures on which MoCo is not an outlier and some (like air passengers and consumer prices) on which it is not tracked. But the above data spells out a narrative of economic weakness that goes beyond regional trends. If it doesn’t make its way into the county’s revenue estimates for next year, it should.
County leaders are going to blame all of this on Trump, and they are partially right. The Trump administration’s stance on health research and food and drug safety is particularly injurious to MoCo, which houses the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration. But it’s not all Trump’s fault since MoCo’s economy has lagged the rest of the region for many years. That long-term economic non-competitiveness has left us in a particularly vulnerable state when facing the predations of Trump and his minions.
MoCo leaders, the time to start looking at restraints on county spending is now.