In news that will shock absolutely no one who has been within a hundred miles of Washington, D.C. in the past year, a new survey finds that a majority of area residents have been negatively impacted by the Trump administration's federal job cuts.

More than half - 55 percent - of 2,801 residents in D.C. and nearby suburbs said their household was negatively affected by the reduction in the federal workforce over the past year, according to the Greater Washington Community Foundation and Gallup. In D.C. alone, two-thirds of residents reported negative impacts, while 62 percent of those in Arlington County and Alexandria, Va., said the same. Across the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia (DMV) region, 41 percent said the cuts didn't affect them, and just 4 percent - presumably people who enjoy watching their neighbors update their LinkedIn profiles - said the reductions benefitted them.

The administration's since-shuttered Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, carried out a government-wide workforce reduction in the early months of President Trump's second term. Federal agencies laid off thousands of workers and offered buyouts to others, though the federal government rehired hundreds of employees last fall, while others kept their jobs thanks to litigation - a sentence that doubles as a summary of modern American governance.

The federal workforce has dipped from more than 2.3 million in 2024 to slightly more than 2 million this year, according to the Office of Personnel Management. Roughly one-third of federal employees worked at the Defense Department, with Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, Justice and Treasury rounding out the top five largest agencies.

DOGE claimed it saved $215 billion, amounting to roughly $1,335 saved per U.S. taxpayer. Whether those taxpayers include the D.C. residents now accessing social services for the first time is a question the report leaves hanging in the air, like a pink slip.

And about those residents: roughly 2 in 10 D.C. residents reported accessing social services for the first time in the past year, while 14 percent of DMV residents did so. In Prince George's County, Md., 23 percent said they used social services for the first time. Black and Hispanic residents of the broader region - at 25 percent and 20 percent, respectively - were also more likely to access social services than the 6 percent of white residents and 12 percent of Asian residents who did so.

"This region has real strength, and real strain, and both are true at the same time," Tonia Wellons, the Greater Washington Community Foundation's president, said in a press release. "Residents told us exactly where they need help: housing, jobs, and real investment in their communities."

The Gallup survey was conducted from Feb. 9 to April 6, with a margin of error of 2.6 points for the entire sample of 2,801 adults - a figure that, unlike the federal workforce, has remained stable.