Federal agencies are required by federal statute to provide 60-day notice of workforce reductions to offset potential strains on state systems and mitigate harms to workers in affected regions. The agencies also reveal to state boards if terminations were performance based or part of a workforce reduction.
As we all know, the new administration has fired workers in the hundreds and thousands without following procedures, perhaps most importantly without notifying the states involved. Apparently, some agencies are citing restructuring, others performance issues, as the reason for terminations, and state agencies have to look carefully at each claim, a process likely to become overwhelming time consuming as purges continue. Until verifications are completed, employees cannot be “released,” meaning that in addition to having no job, they have no benefits. (Lawsuit here.)
It will be a long time before we know the details but, for example, MSN reports that in March 2024, 189 federal workers applied for UI in Maryland. So far this month, offices are receiving 30 to 60 filings a day, which would ratchet up to a 630 to 1,260 total by the end of the month. In the highly unlikely event the current rate remains steady, that is.
federal workers by state
“Economic pain is contagious,” said Michele Evermore, senior fellow at the National Academy of Social Insurance, in a recent interview, so let’s take a look at state concentrations.
Nationally, federal workers make up under 2% of total nonfarm employment, about the same as “insurance carriers and related activities.” A fifth work in DC and environs, constituting 5.8% of total nonfarm employment there. Many states are working to bring federal workers into their own offices, yet some states may not be able to accommodate willfully terminated employees in either private or public sectors. States with largest shares of federal workers, over 2.5%, include Alaska, Hawaii, and New Mexico. In Oklahoma, Wyoming, and West Virginia shares run from 2.0% to 2.5%, followed by 1.5–2.0% in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Maine, Montana, Puerto Rico, and Washington. In the rest of the country, the rates are lower than the national average, with South Dakota’s <0.5% the smallest share. To us, that’s a worrisome mix.
