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Fact check: Which states have the highest number of federal employees affected by the 2025 shutdown?
Executive Summary
Federal reporting from late September 2025 does not produce a single, definitive ranking of states by the number of federal employees affected by the 2025 shutdown, but several contemporaneous pieces identify Maryland as the state with the largest absolute federal job losses [1] [2] and flag high concentrations elsewhere such as Alaska’s roughly 15,000 federal employees and large furlough counts in California’s Bay Area districts. Other dispatches emphasize agency-wide impacts—most notably the Department of Defense’s roughly 334,900 civilian employees who would face furloughs—so state-level totals are inferred rather than centrally tabulated in the available reporting [3] [4] [5] [6] [7].
1. How reporters reached different tallies and why they matter
News analyses diverge because some pieces focus on state-by-state employment shifts while others discuss agency-wide or regional impacts without compiling statewide counts. Reporting that highlights Maryland’s 15,100 federal job losses frames the issue as an accumulation of job cuts since January, not strictly furloughs tied to the shutdown; that distinction matters because job losses and furloughs are different metrics and can produce different state rankings [3] [4]. Other coverage centers on federal-worker vulnerability across districts and agencies, leaving readers to aggregate figures to answer the original state-ranking question [5] [7].
2. Maryland emerges as the most frequently cited “hard-hit” state
Two contemporaneous reports published in late September 2025 identify Maryland as leading the nation with 15,100 federal jobs lost since January, a figure presented as the largest absolute decline and repeated across outlets that tracked post-January workforce changes [3] [4]. This repeated reporting suggests a consensus among those accounts about Maryland’s outsized exposure to federal job reductions. That prominence likely reflects Maryland’s proximity to the federal government and concentration of federal agencies, but the cited pieces frame the figure as job loss rather than furlough count tied strictly to a shutdown [3] [4].
3. Alaska and the Bay Area spotlight different vulnerabilities
Other coverage notes Alaska’s high share of federal employees relative to its workforce, with about 15,000 federal employees living in the state, and Bay Area reporting estimates 190,000 statewide federal workers at risk of furloughs with district-level counts for specific House districts [5] [7]. These accounts show that percentage exposure and local concentration tell different stories: Alaska’s workforce percentage is high but absolute numbers are smaller than populous states, while California’s Bay Area contains large absolute counts concentrated in specific districts, complicating a straightforward “which state is highest” answer [5] [7].
4. Agency-wide furlough figures complicate state tallies
Reporting that nearly half of the Department of Defense’s approximately 334,900 civilian employees would be furloughed highlights a nationwide operational exposure that does not map neatly to states [6]. DoD civilian employees are distributed across many states, bases, and installations, so an agency-level furlough count can imply significant state impacts without producing a ranked state list. Thus, aggregate agency numbers are powerful indicators of national disruption but require redistribution methods to generate reliable state-by-state rankings [6].
5. Conflicting emphases suggest different editorial agendas
The pieces focusing on federal job cuts and resignations advance a narrative about long-term workforce shrinkage and administrative policy, including reporting that 100,000 federal workers were set to quit under a deferred resignation program, which differs from shutdown-driven furlough narratives [8]. Coverage emphasizing furloughs, pay stoppages, and localized district figures aims to highlight immediate community effects. These editorial emphases signal potential agendas—either underscoring structural workforce reductions or dramatizing acute shutdown pain—so readers should note which metric (jobs lost, resignations, furloughs without pay) each article uses [8] [9].
6. What the sources together allow you to infer—and what they don’t
Taken together, the reporting allows a cautious inference that Maryland exhibits the largest documented federal job losses, while Alaska and parts of California (Bay Area districts) have high concentrations of affected federal workers; the Department of Defense adds a substantial nationwide furlough pool that will affect many states [3] [4] [5] [7] [6]. What the sources do not provide is a single, contemporaneous, verified ranking of states by the number of federal employees specifically furloughed because articles use different metrics and geographic scopes [9].
7. Bottom line for readers seeking a definitive state ranking
If you need a definitive state-by-state ranking of federal employees affected by the 2025 shutdown, the current late-September 2025 reporting does not supply one consolidated table; Maryland is the clearest candidate for highest federal job losses, but state exposure depends heavily on whether you count furloughs, resignations, or cumulative job cuts. For a precise ranking, policymakers or analysts would need the raw agency personnel distributions and a consistent metric—data the cited reporting summaries do not uniformly provide [3] [4] [6] [5].