Only 15 percent of the 2.19 million civilian full-time federal employees in the United States work in the Washington metro area, which includes Northern Virginia, suburban Maryland and even a touch of West Virginia. The other 85 percent work elsewhere around the country.
Data provided by the Office of Personnel Management shows the number of federal workers in over 900 metropolitan and micropolitan areas as of March 2023, not including contractors, the Postal Service or intelligence workers. Federal workers earn an average of almost $100,000 per year.
If the government shuts down after the Saturday deadline, federal workers would stop receiving paychecks and most would not have to report to their jobs until the shutdown ends.
Although the Washington area has the highest number of federal workers, they only make up 9 percent of the local working population. Government employees make up larger shares of the workforce in many other areas, often near military bases. Federal employees are 17 percent of the workforce near the Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Southern Maryland. Likewise, federal civilian workers are 16 percent of the workforce in Warner Robins, Ga., near the Robins Air Force Base, and 15 percent of the workforce in the Bremerton-Silverdale, Wash. metropolitan area near a naval base.
