The D.C. region is bracing for new economic pain next week as paychecks stop coming for thousands of federal workers who took the government’s offer of deferred resignation — and the threat of a shutdown could make it worse.
Since January, the region’s unemployment rate has already increased more than eight times faster than the country as a whole, according to analysis by the Brookings Institution published last week. The region has also shed federal jobs at a higher rate, and both the share of residents with low credit scores and the number of homes for sale have grown more quickly than the rest of the country. Meanwhile, private sector job growth has plateaued.
That’s all before the full effects of President Donald Trump’s cuts to the federal workforce hit. When the fiscal year ends T