Impact of continued loss of federal jobs for the region
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Anonymous
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It's well known many higher paying jobs at the USDA are moving to Kansas.
The interior dept is now going to relocate hundreds of bureau of land management employees to Colorado. It makes sense that the government should divest away from DC because cost of living has gotten out of control for its employees, and the govt can save tons of money by paying people lower salaries to live in lower cost of living areas in the country and by not having to pay ~30% locality pay increases just because someone works in DC. The question is, what's will the impact be for the housing in the region? It's well known that economic growth in areas like MoCo have been anemic and have failed to diversify away from govt jobs and govt contractor jobs. Even NoVa would be heavily affected by a big shift in govt relocation. Yesterday Trump is also is demanding big cuts to government spending and wants to consolidate the GSA/OPM. Skeptics will claim that ~80% of govt jobs are already outside of DC, however, DC only accounts for less than 2% of the country's population and has a disproportionate quantity of Fed agencies/jobs still. There is still plenty of motivation to keep divesting away from the DC region. |
Anonymous
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Here's a similar thread that was in real estate and now is in jobs
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/816657.page |
Anonymous
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Honestly IMO -- the effect will be almost negligible.
The majority of federal jobs being moved are middle management and paper pushers for satellite offices. So yes - USDA is heading to Kansas/Missouri, 3.5K of FBI is moving to Alabama, and BLM is moving...somewhere. But DoD is going nowhere, the majority of high security contractors are staying here and the lobbyists and tech developers (the real moneymakers) are growing. I will happily take the 30,000 Amazon employees, 1,000 Google employees, and a couple hundred Facebook employees, and all of the New York millionaires moving down here in exchange for the loss of 4,000 or so feds moving to the middle of the country. Not to mention the relocation of Virginia Tech's campus and John Hopkins. D.C. is booming. |
Anonymous
Beg to differ - that thread is solely about USDA and why people don't want to move to Kansas. This is about the impact on the D.C. metro region with the jobs 'lost' - DP |
Anonymous
| Feds are more middle class thAn the people who will replace them. So it’s probably best for this area to lose those jobs. |
Anonymous
They're similar, I'm suggesting OP check out both. |
Anonymous
This post is from somebody desperate to convince themselves that their housing value won’t be impacted. Of course the loss of thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of Fed jobs and related infrastructure will have an impact. This is what makes it almost impossible to have a rational debate about this topic. |
Anonymous
| The typical GS-13 can no longer afford to buy a home in the DC area. Losing those jobs will have zero effect on the local housing market. |
Anonymous
Actually you can afford to buy a home, but it's not a "middle class" home anymore in the DC area. More like working class. Most people in the DC region no longer work for the feds anyhow, and many who are, are looking to get out now. |
Anonymous
Yeah. And the fact that many, many government career tracks top out at 13 or lower, it's absurd to force people to remain in the DC area where a 30-year career won't afford even a middle class lifestyle. There is not enough headroom for everyone to be a 14/15 administrator. |
Anonymous
Way to generalize. In the IC we’re quite happy and can all reach at least GS-14 without being supervisors. |
Anonymous
The issue is that consultants, contractors and all of those highly paid lobbying/lawyer jobs come to this region precisely because federal agencies exist in this region. Are big ag consultants gonna stay here or have to move to Kansas too if they have to lobby the agency when they are working on a product? If the FDA ever left, tons of pharma lobbyists and lawyers would have to leave and go where the agency would relocate. |
Anonymous
Except you’ve got it wrong. They aren’t lobbying the FDA. They are lobbying Congress AGAINST the FDA. Same for all other lobbying firms and their respective federal counterparts. Which means they’ll stay right here and that all the feds displaced will have to spend more money in their line item budgets traveling to DC in order to lobby the seat of government on behalf of themselves and their projects. Which means more tourism revenue for DC. Bottom line - it’s good for us regardless. |
Anonymous
Good news is good news and bad news is good news! This poster should be President of the National Realtors Association. |
Anonymous
Just realistic PP. I've had friends begging for a downturn/bubble since 2011. Guess what -- we're in another year of record growth and they're still priced out. Trying to turn so-so news of a few federal middle-class households who live in Chantilly anyway being forced to move out of the region into some big thing for the entirety of a crazy metro real estate market is foolish. Greater Washington jumped to second nationally for construction starts in 2018 https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2019/02/15/greater-washington-jumped-to-second-nationally-for.html The 50 States of Construction: DC's building boom driven by more than the government https://www.constructiondive.com/news/the-50-states-of-construction-dcs-building-boom-driven-by-more-than-the-g/436587/ Amazon’s Virginia HQ2 Is Causing a Real Estate Boom https://observer.com/2019/05/amazon-virginia-hq2-real-estate-boom/ |