Washington, D.C
Trump’s federal layoffs could mean bleak outlook for Washington DC
From Veterans Affairs to the CDC: Trump, Musk fire federal workers
President Donald Trump and DOGE head Elon Musk cut thousands of probationary positions after only 3.3% of federal workers took Trump’s buyout offer.
The Trump administration’s sweeping layoffs of federal employees already appear to be pushing up joblessness in Washington, D.C., and an economist projects they’ll tip the city into a recession this year.
The developments are rocking an area of the country that traditionally has served as a bastion of steady employment and economic stability through slowdowns or downturns that have roiled other parts of the country.
Nationally, layoffs have remained historically low and forecasters expect solid economic growth this year with little chance of recession.
In the week ending Feb. 15, 1,695 Washington, D.C., workers applied for unemployment insurance for the first time, up slightly from 1,682 the previous week and 619 during the comparable week a year ago, according to the Labor Department’s non-seasonally adjusted figures.
During the four weeks since Trump took office, 5,455 District of Columbia employees filed initial jobless claims – a reliable gauge of layoffs – up sharply from 2,014 in the same period in early 2024. It’s not clear what portion of those are government workers.
But nationally, excluding D.C., the number of Americans seeking jobless benefits through the first four weeks of both this year and in 2024 has totaled about 920,000 on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, highlighting an unusual surge in the district.
Last week, a seasonally adjusted 219,000 Americans across the U.S. filed initial claims, up from 214,000 the previous week and underscoring that, overall, layoffs remain low.
Do federal government employees get laid off?
So far, the Trump administration has fired more than 10,000 workers at the departments of Energy, Agriculture, Interior, Health and Human Services and Veterans Affairs as well as at the Internal Revenue Service and the Environmental Protection Agency, among other agencies.
The layoffs come on top of about 75,000 workers who have taken buyouts offered by Trump and White House aide Elon Musk, who have said they’re looking to slash government costs and improve efficiency.
Are all federal employees on probation getting fired?
Administration officials have indicated the cuts would include employees still in their probationary periods as well as others. About 220,000 government employees had less than a year of experience as of March 2024, according to the Office of Personnel Management.
The layoffs mark the beginning of “large-scale reductions” in the federal workforce, according to an executive order signed by Trump.
Ultimately, about 400,000 federal workers likely will lose their jobs over the next two years, or about 15% of the 2.4 million members of the federal workforce, estimates Adam Kamins, regional economist at Moody’s Analytics. Many of the targeted positions, he said, will be scattered across the country, slightly slowing growth nationally, but an outsized share – nearly 100,000 – will be in Washington. The nation’s capital is home to slightly less than a fifth of the federal workforce, according to Pew Research.
What is a recession in simple terms?
The job cuts are expected to push D.C. into a mild recession, or declining economic output, that lasts from the second quarter of this year to the third quarter of 2026, Kamins said. He predicts the city’s unemployment rate will rise from its current 5.5% to a peak of 6.5% in mid-2026 and its gross domestic product will contract for six straight quarters.
Nationally, forecasters expect the economy to grow a solid 2.2% this year and put recession odds at just 25%, according to those surveyed this month by Wolters Kluwer Blue Chip Economic Indicators.
“This is a very unusual situation for D.C.,” Kamins said. “It typically is one of the least” vulnerable cities to the ups and downs of economic cycles as a result of stable government jobs that don’t depend on the vagaries of consumer demand.
In fact, under normal circumstances, if Trump’s widening trade war with other countries were to cause a U.S. recession in the next year or two, Washington government jobs could have been viewed as landing spots for laid-off private-sector workers, Kamins said.
The projected 100,000 federal job cuts will also likely mean thousands more additional job losses as restaurants, retailers and other D.C. businesses that rely on sales to federal workers scale back, Kamins said. That could mean new strains for lower-income residents who work in those occupations. The district’s poverty rate was 14% in 2023, compared to 11.1% for the nation, according to Statista and the U.S. Census Bureau.
“A lot of folks are close to the poverty line,” Kamins said. “It’s just going to exacerbate their situation.”
As employees who work in D.C. but live in Virginia and Maryland receive layoff notices, many will likely reduce their spending, slowing growth in those states but stopping short of nudging the areas into a downturn, Kamins said.
How is the US job market right now?
Meanwhile, government workers who lose their jobs are expected to enter a cooling labor market with fewer opportunities. Many specialize in administration, project management or information technology and there are now relatively few private-sector openings in those fields, said Julia Pollak, chief economist of ZipRecruiter, a leading job search site.
“This will be very difficult for many of them,” she said.
Professional business services, a sprawling sector populated with 22.7 million lawyers, consultants, office managers and other white-collar workers, has shed 69,000 jobs over the past year, Labor Department figures show.
What career is most in demand right now?
At the same time, employers are struggling to find finance specialists, cybersecurity workers and administrative health care professionals, Pollak said. Federal workers in those fields, she said, could find plenty of job vacancies at higher wages.
Many federal employees will likely have to leave the region to find work, Kamins said, with some pivoting to new occupations. If a new administration seeks to restore the scuttled jobs in four years, it may be difficult to find employees, he said.
Pollak is more sanguine.
“There are many people who want to serve in the federal government,” she said.
Look back at Dick Cheney’s controversial political legacy
USA TODAY’s Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page looks back at Dick Cheney’s political legacy after his death at age 84.
The funeral for former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney is set to take place this week in Washington, DC.
Cheney died of complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease at the age of 84 on Nov. 3, his relatives said.
The longtime force in Republican politics served under former President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009 and was considered one of the most powerful and controversial men to hold the vice president role, in large part because of his role in leading the push to invade Iraq in 2003.
He became a critic of President Donald Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, saying he voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, USA TODAY previously reported.
Born in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1941, the former VP grew up in Wyoming, where he served as a congressman and later retired. He is survived by his wife, Lynne, and two daughters, Mary and Liz. Liz Cheney is a former GOP lawmaker.
Here’s what to know about the funeral of Dick Cheney.
When is Dick Cheney’s funeral?
Cheney’s funeral will be held at 11 a.m. ET on Thursday, Nov. 20.
Where is Dick Cheney’s funeral?
Cheney’s funeral will take place at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC.
It will be by invitation, and only those with invitations issued in advance of the service will be admitted to the Cathedral with security measures in place for staff and guests.
The public is invited to watch the service online.
Who is speaking at Dick Cheney’s funeral?
The following people are among nearly a dozen individuals set to speak at Cheney’s memorial service:
- The Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith, dean of Washington National Cathedral
- George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States
- Dr. Jonathan Reiner, Professor of Medicine and Surgery, George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences
- Cheney’s daughter, Liz Cheney
- Cheney’s grandchildren
- Pete Williams, Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs and former NBC News Justice Correspondent
Where will Dick Cheney be buried?
As of Sunday, Nov. 16, information about a potential burial of Cheney had not been released.
USA TODAY has reached out to a Cheney family spokesperson for comment.
Contributing: Mary Walrath-Holdridge, USA TODAY
Here are some observations from the game:
• Simon Nemec has been on a remarkable run. In the past three games he’s scored five goals – the shootout winner included, although those don’t show up on the official stats list. Nemec scored the game-tying goal against the Islanders and a hat trick in Chicago, before adding his shootout winner tonight.
“When Sheldon said I’m up (in the shootout), in my head I’m like, I’ve just got one move, so just go and try it and it worked,” Nemec said. “I’m happy for that.”
“He’s feeling it,” Keefe said of his decision to give Nemec the opportunity in the shootout, “But I also felt we needed a right handed shot to give the goaltender a different look. That was it. And you’re looking at righties, and we don’t have a ton of options there, and Nemo is feeling it, so why not?”
• Without Hughes, the Devils had revamped power play units:
PP1: Nemec, Hischier, Bratt, Meier and Mercer
PP2: Luke Hughes, Gritsyuk, Palat, Cotter and Noesen
Gritsyuk scored the opening goal of the game on the power play, which went 1-for-3 against the Caps, all three Washington penalties coming in the opening 7 minutes of the game.
• Prior to the game, head coach Sheldon Keefe gave some injury updates, with Zack MacEwen and Cody Glass both having traveled back to New Jersey for further evaluation on their injuries sustained in Chicago. Keefe mentioned that MacEwen will be out for “an extended period of time” while Cody Glass is out week-to-week. With both theirs and Hughes’s absence, three lineup spots opened.
The Devils had made two callups prior to the game, Shane Lachance and Nathan Légaré, who both played their first games of the season. For Lachance, it was his NHL debut.
Légaré finished the night with 9:26 of ice time and was bumped up to the third line to play with Ondrej Palat and Juho Lammikko for parts of the game, while Lachance played seven minutes in his debut.
“Guys like Légaré and Lachance coming in today, we need minutes from these guys,” Keefe said. “This game we played tonight is two steps faster than the game we played in Chicago. It was a different league out there today. You can’t get by if you’re not using six defensemen and four lines. We need minutes from those guys and everybody contributed in their own way and that’s what you need. That’s a team win. Full marks for our guys.”
Juho Lammikko re-entered the Devils’ lineup, playing the third-line center role.
• The Devils played their first game this season without forward Jack Hughes. He is expected to miss two months of action after undergoing surgery on his finger. In Hughes’s absence, Jesper Bratt was wearing the ‘A’ on his jersey as an alternate captain alongside Ondrej Palat. Bratt also wore the A in Hughes’s absence last season.
• In a scary incident, Alex Ovechkin threw Jesper Bratt into the boards in the far corner of the Capitals’ net at the tail end of the first period. Bratt lay on the ice while the play continued momentarily. It was one of the more bizarre moments as the Devils capped off the play seconds after Bratt fell to the ice with a goal by Luke Hughes. Instead of celebrating, Hughes went right from the follow-through of his snapshot to Bratt’s aid, putting his hand up to call for team trainers. Bratt was attended to on the ice, eventually making his way to the bench on his own accord. There was no celebration when Luke Hughes scored the Devils’ second goal, assisted by Bratt and Brenden Dillon, with Bratt still lying on the ice.
Bratt’s teammates immediately called for the athletic trainer, who came to his aid. Bratt was able to skate off on his own and remained on the Devils bench.
• The Devils played in their fifth straight overtime. Only two other times in franchise history has the team played five straight overtime games. Both previous times came during the 1995-96 season.
WASHINGTON (7News) — The federal shutdown is over, the holidays are approaching and the DMV is packed with things to do. Here’s what’s going on this weekend.
Washington, D.C.
Friday, November 14
Side Yards Carnival (5:30 p.m.), 355 Water Street SE
Friday Night Fever Comedy Show (8 p.m.), 2323 18th Street NW
Saturday, November 15
Taylor Swift Dance Class (11 a.m.), 600 Howard Road SE
NWSL Semifinal: Washington Spirit vs Portland Thorns (12 p.m.), 100 Potomac Avenue SW
On Air: The Frequency of Her Power (7 p.m.), 2455 6th Street NW
Club Oz at Barrel House (10 p.m.), 1341 14th Street NW
Sunday, November 16
Pizza and Coffee Rave (11 a.m.), 399 Morse Street NE
Samantha Bee: How to Survive Menopause (4 p.m.), 600 I Street NW
Maryland
Friday, November 14
Strathmore Shop Holiday Market (10 a.m.), 10701 Rockville Pike, North Bethesda
Disney Channel Skate (9:30 p.m.), 5211 Campus Drive, College Park
Saturday, November 15
Holiday Arts and Crafts Market (10 a.m.), 14900 Health Center Drive, Bowie
Dinosaur Park Open House (12 p.m.), 13100 Mid Atlantic Boulevard, Laurel
Diwali Festival (3 p.m.), 12901 Town Commons Drive, Germantown
Sunday, November 16
Empty Bowls (1 p.m.), 155 Gibbs Street, Rockville
The Polar Express on the Potomac (2 p.m.), 150 National Plaza, National Harbor
Virginia
Friday, November 14
Bull Run Festival of Lights (5:30 p.m.), 7700 Bull Run Drive, Centreville
Tysons Holiday Kick-off (6 p.m.), 1961 Chain Bridge Road, Tysons Corner
Saturday, November 15
Chocolate and Coffee Festival (10 a.m.), 4320 Chantilly Shopping Center, Chantilly
Leesburg Tree Lighting Festival (2 p.m.), 1610 Village Market Boulevard SE, Leesburg
Sunday, November 16
American Patchwork Quartet (3 p.m.), 2310 Colts Neck Road, Reston
JMU Unaccompanied (5:30), 227 Maple Avenue East, Vienna
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