Nearly half of households in Fairfax County and the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church said federal job cuts or furloughs negatively affected them, according to a Gallup and Greater Washington Community Foundation survey released Thursday, Sept. 24.

The finding carries particular weight in Reston, where major federal contractors Leidos, SAIC and CACI International are headquartered. Leidos alone draws 87% of its revenue from U.S. government contracts, according to its annual filing. SAIC derives roughly 98% of revenue from federal work, according to a July 2026 financial analysis.

The survey, titled "Voices of the Community: DC, Maryland, Virginia," found that 49% of respondents in Fairfax County and the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church said the cuts negatively affected their household, FFXnow reported. That trails the regional average of 55%. In D.C., 66% reported negative impacts. Arlington County and Alexandria came in at 62%, and Loudoun County at 51%.

Higher-income households felt the squeeze more acutely. Across the D.C. region, 58% of respondents earning $90,000 or more per year said they were affected, compared to 48% of lower-income households.

Amanda Nataro, 42, a single mother of two who lost her job at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), told the Associated Press that the damage went beyond individual paychecks. "It wasn't just about our jobs being gone," Nataro said. "It was really this awful ripple effect of all these lives and destinies really disrupted."

Nataro signed up for food stamps and unemployment assistance, found work in academia at a lower salary and asked her landlord for a rent reduction, the AP reported.

Sam Trumbull, a former U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) policy writer who earned more than $130,000 a year, took a deferred resignation after DOGE targeted her position, according to AP reporting. She secured only part-time work a year later. During that stretch, Trumbull took a forbearance on her mortgage, applied for public assistance and told the AP she and her husband brought home just $2,000 a month while accumulating debt.

In Fairfax County, 9% of respondents said someone in their household used social services for the first time in the past year. The D.C. regional average was 14%.

Immigration enforcement also registered: 19% of Fairfax County respondents reported household impacts from enforcement actions, while 15% cited military activity and 8% cited increased law enforcement.

The broader job market has thinned. The Washington metropolitan region lost more than 100,000 jobs between May 2025 and May 2026, a roughly 3% drop, according to Metropolitan Council of Governments data cited by Patch. More than half were federal government positions.

Closer to home, Northern Virginia layoff announcements rose nearly 50% over the summer. Between June 21 and Sept. 21, employers announced 451 job losses, according to WARN Act filings reported by Patch. The largest single cut: Bechtel Power Corporation's plan to eliminate about 200 positions at its Reston office on Democracy Drive after parting ways with TerraPower on the Natrium nuclear project. Those layoffs are expected to begin in mid-November, according to the filing.

Only about half of D.C.-area residents now rate local job availability as "excellent" or "good," down from 65% in 2023, the Gallup survey found. Rising cost of living was cited by 58% of respondents as a factor that could push them to consider leaving the region.

The survey was conducted by mail from Feb. 9 through April 6, covering about 2,800 adults across D.C., Fairfax, Loudoun, Arlington, Montgomery and Prince George's counties and the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.