DC federal workers in a 'panic' over novel experience of job insecurity with Trump cuts

Federal workers in Washington, D.C., are experiencing job instability for the first time ever, and the whole city is in a "panic," according to one report.

President Donald Trump and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are cutting spending and terminating government programs left and right, leading to layoffs, buyouts and a shell-shocked Capitol not even 3 weeks into his second term.

"Washington already feels like a transformed place," Politico senior editor Michael Schaeffer wrote in a Friday column. "And it won’t just snap back even if the crusade ends tomorrow. … something essential in the culture has shifted." 

In his piece, titled, "‘Are We Detroit Now?’: Trump’s Cuts Panic Washington," Schaeffer took stock of the sudden anguish and anxiety experienced by government workers living in one of the richest and most expensive areas of the country.

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USAID found itself on the chopping block in recent weeks due to the DOGE effort to cut government waste. (Getty Images)

"It is a very difficult time in D.C.," Yesim Sayin, the executive director of the D.C. Policy Center, said. "The uncertainties are so big. There’s a whole industry contingent on the federal government spending money."

"It’s hard to express just how unfamiliar base-level uncertainty is in Washington," Schaeffer said. "The city has always felt like a company town where the company will never go out of business. While most of us don’t actually work for the government, its permanence shapes our expectations, and not just in four-year increments. Assumptions about Washington’s essence inform decisions about buying a house or building a life."

"It’s essentially like a nuclear bomb falls and destroys all your future plans," Sayin added.

While Trump’s moves have affected contractors, Schaeffer says that workers in the nation’s Capitol are experiencing a "novel element to a city built on government stability: economic paranoia" and "a Beltway category that didn’t really exist until recently: waiting around to be fired." 

"For generations, the staid predictability of federal paychecks and government contracts has defined Washington life even for the many folks who don’t work for Uncle Sam," Schaeffer wrote. "Now there’s a sudden awareness that those payments may not be so predictable. It’s a bewildering, vertiginous feeling: an industry town when the industry starts to wobble."

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AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler speaks at a rally against the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) outside the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL on February 05, 2025 in Washington, DC.  (Kena Betancur/VIEWpress)

With Trump’s mandate that federal workers accept a buyout or return to work in-person, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and two other unions filed a complaint, saying the buyout offer is "arbitrary and capricious" and that it violates federal law.

Over 40,000 workers have agreed to the buyout, and on Thursday a federal judge pushed the administration’s deadline to accept the buyout or resign from Thursday to Monday. 

As white collar federal bureaucrats worried the city is turning into Detroit during the collapse of the auto industry, Schaeffer spoke to Ron Fournier, a former DC journalist who moved back to Motor City, who confirmed the comparisons.

The US Capitol Building is surrounded by fencing in Washington, D.C., on Friday, January 17, 2025.  (Fox News Digital)

Fournier predicted that the D.C. workforce "is not going to recover." 

"It’s hard to come back from being in what you thought was a stable industry, and then you wake up one day and you realize it’s not," Fournier said. "It’s always going to change the way people in your town look at their history and how secure they feel, and how comfortable they feel, and how optimistic they feel. It’s a blow for the psyche that is not going to recover."

Rachel del Guidice is a reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..