When Donald Trump promised and then imposed a federal hiring freeze, his supporters were probably thinking he meant stuffy bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. And while the D.C. area will doubtless be hit hard (and many of the jobs lost there are doing things that matter to people’s lives), Trump supporters are going to find a lot of surprises on the list of jobs lost. Like preschool teachers for military families overseas. And jobs in rural communities across the country:
According to the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), more than 85 percent of federal workers live and work outside of Washington, D.C. Among the states that rely most heavily on federal jobs are Alaska, Wyoming, Mississippi, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Montana, Alabama and New Mexico. These jobs are lifelines in places where there are few other options.
How will blocking the hiring of a school bus driver for the Tsiya Day School in Zia Pueblo, New Mexico, address corruption? A special education teacher at the Ojibwa Indian School in Belcourt, North Dakota? A Department of Interior park guide in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, or a Veterans Administration food service worker in Chillicothe, Ohio? All are current job openings the president’s action will leave unfilled.
It’s not just rural communities, of course.
Loss of access to jobs under a federal hiring freeze will hit black Americans, and black women, particularly hard. Office of Personnel Management statistics show that blacks make up a higher proportion of the federal workforce than the private sector, and more than half of these workers are women.
That’s an answer we didn’t need to “what do you have to lose,” the question Trump directed at black communities during his campaign. (Your jobs. You have your jobs to lose.) And Trump voters might not really mind that part. But it feels like a safe bet that, while some of the fringe will celebrate the loss of rural jobs maintaining public lands, your average Trump voter didn’t think they were voting for the loss of good jobs in West Virginia or Wyoming.