By Amelia Benavides-Colón

Virginia officials are preparing for the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal government to radically reshape their state — including by losing residents.

The state is used to having the federal government as a reliable major employer — it is home to one of the highest concentrations of federal employees due to its proximity to Washington. Already it is seeing changes to its politics around the job losses. And members of both parties are bracing for the unemployment to reshuffle a lot more.

“I’m worried about these workers leaving, and the ripple effect that’s going to have on the rest of our workforce and the rest of our economy,” Rep. Jennifer McClellan told NOTUS.

In response to the rapid changes to the federal workforce, Virginia’s state House became the first in the country to form a bipartisan emergency committee to address the economic impact on their state. The state’s governor is trying to connect fired federal workers to jobs in the state. And town halls hosted by members of Congress are filling up with people whose lives have been disrupted.

Members of the emergency committee expressed worry that the state doesn’t have jobs matching the pay and skill set these federal employees are expecting.

“I have great concerns just about how this is going to impact not only our federal workers, who we value very much, but also the businesses that support them, everything from transportation to restaurants to daycare,” said state Del. Josh Thomas, a member of the committee. “If everyone starts to have to move out, or they have to find different jobs, or some decide not to work at all, and go to one income household. What will the impact be on the local economy?”

There’s also concern among state lawmakers about the impact on the housing market as federal workers worry about affording housing payments. They say that the true impacts on the market will only come into focus over time.

“Some of the broader repercussions that we’re going to see is people either forced to sell their house, forced to relocate…the economy of the region is going to be impacted when people are not able to have the same purchasing power that they had,” said state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi. “It is going to have sweeping repercussions for just about every sector.”

The Trump administration began clearing house his first day in office, announcing plans to eliminate federal bureaucracy. The Department of Government Efficiency has said nearly 300,000 federal employees have been impacted by these cuts, including 220,000 probationary employees and 75,000 who accepted buyout offers. But the numbers are constantly fluctuating, as agencies like the Department of Veterans Affairs and Internal Revenue Service continue to make cuts at the same time the Department of Agriculture and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reinstate previously fired probationary employees.

Republicans have largely lined up behind these cuts, but in Virginia, it’s clear that elected officials from the party are feeling some of the pressure to address what these changes will mean for constituents.

“I want to make sure that they know we care about them and we value them, and we want them to find that next chapter should they experience job dislocation here in Virginia,” Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin said last week in a press conference, announcing a website listing more than 200,000 open positions in the state.

But in an interview with Fox, Youngkin said the federal workforce cuts are necessary.

“We have a federal government that is inefficient, and we have an administration that’s taking on that challenge, rooting out waste, fraud and abuse and driving efficiency in our federal government,” Youngkin said. “It needs to happen.”

Youngkin, a Trump ally who is in the last year of his term, did not respond to an interview request.

The job losses are already playing a major role in the race to replace him.

“I’m not only hearing from Virginians who are worried about their jobs, but I’m also hearing from small business owners, contractors, and business leaders who are worried about what this chaos means for the stability of our economy,” former Rep. Abigail Spanberger said in a statement to NOTUS.

Spanberger is the only Democrat running for governor and has heavily incorporated the cuts in her campaign. Lieutenant Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, did not respond to a request for comment. But in a video posted to X she said she understands “what it is to not know how the next paycheck is coming” and added that “the government must be accountable to us and tell us how it is spending our hard-earned dollars.”

Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, who is on a town hall district tour to hear directly from his district’s more than 30,000 federal employees, told NOTUS he’s preparing for an exodus.

“I’ve started hearing from nonprofits in our community who are really concerned, one, about their own funding…and concerned that they’re gonna receive an influx of people they need to serve because of this,” Subramanyam told NOTUS. “I think it’ll have devastating economic consequences.”