BALTIMORE – Given that more than $1 of every $10 in wages paid in Maryland comes from the U.S. government, many residents will be closely watching to see whether President-elect Donald Trump’s administration moves to fullfill his campaign promise of cutting back on the federal workforce and relocating some agencies from the DMV to other parts of the country.

“This would have a disproportionate effect in Maryland,” said Darius Irani, chief economist for the Regional Economic Studies Institute at Towson University.

The state ranks fourth in the country for the most federal jobs, after the District of Columbia, California and Virginia. Maryland houses the headquarters of agencies that include the Social Security Administration in Woodlawn, the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda and the U.S. Census Bureau in Suitland, as well as sizable branches of everything from NASA to the IRS to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

About 160,000 civilian federal jobs are located in Maryland, paying a total of $25 billion in wages, according to a recent accounting by the state’s Department of Legislative Services. That represents about 11% of the wages paid in the state, the department’s office of policy analysis said. Additionally, the office noted, many Marylanders commute to the District of Columbia and Virginia, which each have around 190,000 federal jobs.

The policy office also noted a “potential casualty of the election” — the selection last year of Greenbelt as the future home of the FBI’s new headquarters. Now that hard-fought win, which has drawn opposition from Virginia lawmakers who had hoped to land the building in their state as well as congressional Republicans, may be in jeopardy.

Trump has not detailed specific plans for cutbacks, but he has appointed wealthy entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head a new Department of Government Efficiency to cut back on federal spending and employment. All three have been making bold pronouncements about slashing the government by doing away with or relocating huge portions of the workforce and entire departments.

Ramaswamy, a former Republican candidate for president himself, has vowed “mass reductions” and for some governmental agencies to be “deleted outright.” Musk, the world’s richest man, has said he wants to cut at least $2 trillion of the $6.75 trillion federal budget, a task many view as impossible.

‘Wait and see’

“If your goal is to make government more efficient and more effective, we’ll work with you,” said Johnny Zuagar, a 20-year Census Bureau veteran. “As federal employees, let’s see how we can help.”

“Now, if I’m going to have to move to Kansas, that might be a different conversation,” added Zuagar, 44, who moved from Philadelphia to Maryland to take the job at Census headquarters.

Zuagar, who is president of the American Federation of Government Employees council representing workers at his agency, said that for now, he’s “bringing the positivity”, despite the sometimes harsh talk about a bloated, wasteful federal bureaucracy.

“It’s wait and see,” the statistician said.

That is the advice from Terry Gerton, president and CEO of the National Academy of Public Administration, a nonprofit that researches and seeks to advance good government.

“My guidance to everyone is to exercise patience and caution,” she said. “These are things that are easy to say but harder to do. Let’s wait and see.”

Indeed, Trump made similar promises in advance of his first term. But while some agencies did indeed take hits, including the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency, the total civilian workforce actually grew.

His attempts to move agencies away from the DMV were limited, with employees largely refusing the relocations. It took a couple of years to move the Bureau of Land Management from Washington to Colorado, for example, and more than 87% of the staff quit rather than relocate.

“All that expertise went out the door,” said Jason Briefel, policy and outreach director for Senior Executives Association, which represents about 10,000 career federal executives.

After Trump was not re-elected in 2020, the administration of President Joe Biden restored the BLM headquarters to Washington.

‘It’s his purview’

Briefel, who is a non-attorney partner at Shaw, Bransford & Roth, which specializes in federal employment law, said members are “absolutely paying attention to what they’re saying out there” and collecting information about their programs and budgets to have ready for the new administration.

“Any decision that’s made about personnel and where an agency might be based has to be grounded in analysis, in a plan,” he said. “Are we going to lose people? The critical question is what does it mean for the mission.”

Given that Trump has moved agencies in the past gives his current talk of relocations some weight, particularly with Republicans also in control of both the House and the Senate, Irani said.

“It’s not like it’s outside the realm of possibility,” he said. “He’s got both chambers. It’s his purview.”

In Maryland, any large scale reductions or relocations would certainly resonate. The feds’ impact extends well beyond their own workforce, and any changes to staffing levels has ripple effects throughout the state, which is home to multiple government contractors and other companies that provide services to the federal sector.

“Maryland’s economy, workforce, and state revenue base are deeply intertwined with the federal government, and presidential elections can have a major impact on our state’s families and businesses,” Comptroller Brooke Lierman said in a recent statement responding to the presidential election.

In 2021, Lierman said, federal wages and pensions from more than 300,000 Maryland households pumped $31 billion to Maryland’s economy, 10% of all income in the state.

Lierman noted that public funds flow heavily in Maryland: A recent report identified $68 billion in federal, state, and local government procurement contracts coming directly into the state, with federal spending accounting for half of that.

‘It could affect my job’

Rutilio Rivera, 65, is not a federal employee, but works for a company that has a contract to clean offices in the U.S. Census Bureau’s Suitland headquarters. When the government has shut down in the past over funding disputes, or when the COVID pandemic shuttered offices and sent employees home to work remotely, he felt it in his paycheck.

“I had difficulty making mortgage payments,” Rivera said in Spanish, as an official with his union, Service Employees International Union, interpreted.

Now he’s following the news to see if the incoming administration plans to cut or move federal employees, and how that affects the need for his own labor. It’s not just his paycheck, Rivera said, but also benefits like health insurance.

“I’m worried because it could affect my job, my ability to pay for my house, my children,” Rivera said. “I’m waiting to see what happens.”

Jaime Contreras, the executive vice president of his local, 32BJ of SEIU, decried the potential job losses his members could face. According to the union, about 2,000 of its members work in federal buildings either as cleaners or security officers.

“Diverting resources from critical agencies to give even more tax breaks to the highest earners and [Trump’s] corporate donors would have a reverse Robin Hood effect, exemplifying his true disdain for working families,” Contreras said in a statement.

Gerton of the public administration group said the negative tone to the discourse about “the government in Washington” belies the fact about 85% of federal workers are based outside the DMV.

“I think in general most Americans are not aware of that,” she said. “The 2 million civil servants, in many respects, they’re their neighbors.”

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