South poised to be hit hard by Trump federal job cuts

Since the Trump administration took office in January, the Department of Government Efficiency led by billionaire Elon Musk has unleashed a wide-ranging – and legally-questionable – assault on government agencies and the federal workforce. Since Trump took office, an estimated 200,000 federal jobs have been eliminated, and another 75,000 employees have taken buyouts to resign or retire.

An analysis by the Institute for Southern Studies/Facing South finds that Southern states – which largely supported President Trump in the 2024 elections – could suffer the most from the administration’s efforts to slash the government workforce.

Almost a third – 31% – of federal civilian employees work in 13 Southern states*, roughly in line with the region’s share of the overall national population. About 700,000 federal employees work in the South, making up 1.2% of the region’s overall non-farm workforce.

Virginia and West Virginia, states in close proximity to Washington, D.C., account for 161,000 federal employees in the South. But other Southern states also have a share of federal workers above the national average. According to figures from March 2024, the share of the overall workforce that are federal employees is above the national average in Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia.

This large share of federal employees in the South leaves communities in the region uniquely vulnerable to wide-scale government cuts.

In late January, the Urban Institute looked into how employment would change across the country if DOGE followed through on its original plan to “fire” 75% of the federal workforce. The report found that the hardest-hit areas would be small and medium-sized towns where a military base or other federal facility is a big employer – and that analysis only looked at the newly unemployed federal workers, not the economic ripple effects of lost income on the broader community.

Cutting federal employees is only one piece of Trump and Musk’s broader attack on government. In early February, the administration proposed slashing support for National Institutes of Health grants, threatening projects like expanding telehealth access in Appalachia for areas with poor internet access. North Carolina and Texas are among the 10 states that have received the most NIH funding, and Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Virginia all receive more than half a billion each year. The proposed cut to NIH research funding has been temporarily blocked after 22 states sued, including North Carolina.

How far Trump and Musk will get in their wrecking-ball approach to government jobs and programs remains to be seen. As of this writing, the Trump administration faces more than 30 lawsuits related to the firings and funding cuts, which in several cases have blocked or slowed their proposals.

Some Republican lawmakers who have largely supported Trump have also voiced concern about cuts that could be especially damaging in their home states. Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL), for example, warned against measures that would “hinder life-saving, groundbreaking research at high-achieving institutions like those in Alabama” after the NIH cuts were proposed.

The University of Alabama-Birmingham is among the top recipients of NIH funding in the country for health programs that employed more than 4,700 people in 2023, and had an economic impact estimated at more than $900 million.