Trump's budget could plunge nation's capital into recessionYahoo Finance/AP, Mar 28, 2017, Ben Nuckols, Associated Press
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While many of the targeted federal agencies have offices outside Washington, Trump's dream budget would hit the region disproportionately, with tens of thousands of jobs at risk. The cuts would be felt throughout the city, with fewer people riding the already-beleaguered Metro subway or eating at restaurants. It would also hurt Washington's already-shaky market for office space.
Economist Stephen Fuller of George Mason University, who has studied the regional economy for decades, estimated 20,000-24,000 federal employees and 10,000 federal contractors would lose their jobs under Trump's proposal. That equates to 5 percent of federal workers in the region.
With those workers earning an average salary of $111,000, the job losses would mean more than $2.2 billion in lost wages, Fuller said. That would reverberate around the city.
"These are basically shutting agencies down whose principal contribution to the Washington economy is jobs," Fuller said. "These are really good jobs. The average job in a restaurant (pays) $28,000. You've got to create a lot of restaurant jobs to replace one of these."
Federal spending increases after Sept. 11, 2001, helped revive the city's economy, and Washington was largely insulated from the impact of the Great Recession because new federal spending made up for the region's private-sector job losses, Taylor said.
Of the 19 agencies that Trump wants to eliminate, 16 are headquartered in Washington, and another is just across the river in Arlington, Virginia. Most of the offices are clustered around downtown.
Agencies on the chopping block include the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the U.S. Institute for Peace, which has a striking headquarters that was completed just 6 years ago near the Lincoln Memorial.
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