Unless Congress reaches a last-minute agreement on the sequester by Friday, the huge budget cuts slated to kick in have the potential to affect more than 4,200 federal employees working in Lake County.
Barring any kind of deal, the Obama administration will have to impose $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts to military and domestic programs on Friday, according to The New York Times. Those cuts would be the start of $1 trillion in cuts over the next decade.
The numbers in the graph above show the number of federal employees in Illinois by county in 2012, according to the latest figures from Eye on Washington, a DC-based lobbying firm that tracks federal employment.
It compiles the data from the Office of Personnel Management, Federal Employment Statistics and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
While much has been made written on how the current sequestration battle in Washington could affect the national economy, these numbers are meant to give readers a sense of the sequestration at the local level.
Of the 4,200 federal employees in Lake County, more than 2,100 work for the Department of Veterans Affairs and more than 1,800 are employed by the Department of Defense.
The White House has released reports detailing how each state would be impacted by a sequester.
In Illinois, the following areas could be affected just this year if the sequester goes into effect:
- Teachers and schools: $33.4 million
- Work-study jobs
- Head Start
- Protection for clean air and clean water: $6.4 million overall and $974,000 in grants for fish and wildlife protection.
- Military readiness: $83.5 million reduction in gross pay as a result of 14,000 civilian DOD employees being furloughed.
- Law Enforcement and Public Safety Funds for Crime Prevention and Prosecution: $587,000
- Job Search Assistance to Help those in Illinois find Employment and Training: $1.4 million
- Child care
- Vaccines for children: $357,000
- Public health: $4.6 million
- Stop violence against women programs: $273,000
- Nutrition assistance for seniors: $764,000
No one knows for certain what the sequestration cuts, some $85 billion, will mean exactly. Even if the March 1 federal cuts are enacted, the full effects would not be felt immediately. The government is required to alert impacted agencies of what cuts are to be made and what workers are to be furloughed.
It should be noted, however, that even the suggestion of cuts and the notification process itself could be felt in some community economies.
Uncertainty for federal workers means they are likely to tighten their belts until they see what the cuts look like – and how long they last. It means those workers will likely spend less money at local shops and restaurants.
In some communities there may be only a handful of federal workers and the impacts may be small. But, as these figures show, in other counties federal employees numbers in the thousands and in those places the sequestration could become a more significant pain, particularly if it drags on for weeks or months.
*Editor's Note: U.S. Postal Service Employees are excluded in this count. The USPS receives no tax dollars in its operations and would not be affected by the sequestration cuts.
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