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Jennifer
Piggott,
Parkersburg,
West
Virginia,
February
28,
2025.
REUTERS/Megan
Jelinger
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She
voted
for
Trump -
He fired
her;
DOGE job
cuts
bring
pain to
Main
Street
By
Nathan
Layne,
Aleksandra
Michalska
reuters.com
PARKERSBURG,
West
Virginia,
March 7
(Reuters)
-
Jennifer
Piggott
proudly
hung a
red-and-blue
Trump
campaign
flag
outside
her
one-story
home
during
the
November
election
race.
Now,
after
she was
abruptly
fired
from her
civil
service
job, her
days of
supporting
the
president
are
over.
Piggott
is among
more
than 125
people
dismissed
in
February
from the
Treasury
Department's
Bureau
of
Fiscal
Service
in
Parkersburg,
West
Virginia,
unsettling
a
community
that
voted
overwhelmingly
for
Republican
President
Donald
Trump.
"Nobody
that
I've
talked
to
understood
the
devastation
that
having
this
administration
in
office
would do
to our
lives,"
Piggott,
47, told
Reuters
in an
interview,
saying
she
would
not have
supported
Trump if
she knew
then
what she
knows
now.
"As much
as I
think
that
President
Trump is
doing
wonderful
things
for the
country
in some
regards,
I don't
understand
this at
all,"
she
said.
Piggott
worked
at BFS
for five
years
and had
recently
been
promoted.
That
promotion
made her
a target
as the
Trump
administration
began
firing
thousands
of
probationary
federal
workers
- a
group
that
includes
new
hires
but also
existing
workers
moving
from one
internal
position
to
another.
The
renunciation
of
allegiance
to Trump
by
Piggott,
a
church-going
conservative
and
three-time
Trump
voter,
comes as
political
analysts
are
parsing
early
signs of
a
possible
backlash
in
Republican
strongholds
where
the
government-slashing
efforts
of the
president
and his
cost-cutting
czar
Elon
Musk are
beginning
to be
felt.
A White
House
spokesman
told
Reuters
that
Trump
had been
given a
popular
mandate
to
overhaul
the
federal
government
to
combat
waste,
fraud,
and
abuse.
Trump
edged
out his
opponent,
Democratic
former
Vice
President
Kamala
Harris,
by 1.5
percentage
points
in the
November
contest.
"The
personal
financial
situation
of every
American
is top
of mind
for the
president,
which is
why he's
working
to cut
regulations,
reshore
jobs,
lower
taxes,
and make
government
more
efficient,"
Harrison
Fields
added.
The
Musk-led
Department
of
Government
Efficiency
did not
respond
to
requests
for
comment.
Spokespeople
for
Riley
Moore,
who
represents
Parkersburg
in the
House of
Representatives,
and
Senator
Jim
Justice
did not
respond
to
requests
for
comment.
Senator
Shelley
Moore
Capito
told
Reuters
that
while
she
understands
the
concerns
some
have
about
the DOGE
cuts,
she
supports
the
Trump
administration's
efforts
to
"right-size"
government.
Trump
spoke at
length
about
eliminating
unnecessary
programs
during
his
address
to
Congress
on
Tuesday
but made
no
mention
of the
mass
government
firings
that
have
roiled
the
country.
So far
100,000
workers
have
been
fired or
taken a
buyout.
Reuters/Ipsos
polling
shows
Americans'
attitudes
toward
Trump
are so
far
essentially
unchanged
since he
began
firing
federal
workers
in
February.
As of
March 4,
his
approval
rating
was
holding
steady
at 44%.
West
Virginia
is also
strong
Trump
country.
He won
the
state in
November
with 70%
of the
vote,
among
his
biggest
victories.
Still,
the
economic
impact
of the
mass
dismissals
across
America
may not
be felt
immediately.
A
handful
of
Republican
voters
who lost
their
federal
jobs
joined
Democrats
for a
rally of
more
than 100
people
protesting
the cuts
near the
two BFS
office
buildings
in
Parkersburg
last
week,
cheering
on a
local
union
leader
as he
criticized
Trump
and Musk
while
standing
next to
a large
"Fat
Cat"
balloon.
Support
for
Trump's
shrinking
of
government
can,
however,
be heard
in
places
around
Parkersburg
- a
middle-aged
couple
singing
DOGE's
praises
over
breakfast
at a
local
diner; a
hotel
patron
saying
remote
workers
deserved
to be
fired; a
young
bartender
lamenting
federal
workers'
relatively
high
pay.
In
interviews
with
three
dozen
workers,
business
owners
and
politicians
in
Parkersburg,
which
sits at
the
convergence
of two
rivers
including
the
mighty
Ohio,
nearly
all said
Trump's
focus on
cutting
government
spending
was a
worthy
goal.
But most
said
they
knew BFS
employees
to be
hard-working
and
didn't
see them
as the
right
target
if the
aim was
to
eliminate
waste.
Scot
Heckert,
a
Republican
who
represents
parts of
Parkersburg
in the
West
Virginia
state
legislature,
said he
was
worried
that
layoffs
at BFS,
which
employs
about
2,200
workers
in
Parkersburg,
would
"devastate"
the
local
economy
because
the
workers
earned
higher-than-average
salaries,
and
because
of the
looming
prospect
of
another
round of
cuts.
He said
his
daughter-in-law
was
among
those
fired
and that
he was
seeking
more
information
on why
so many
jobs
were
eliminated
in a
seemingly
indiscriminate
manner
before
he would
commit
to
backing
Trump in
the
future.
"People
voted
for
Donald
Trump to
make a
change,"
he
added.
"It's an
unfortunate
thing in
our
community
that is
plagued
with
many
things
as it
is."
BUSINESS
IMPACT
To the
residents
of
Parkersburg,
West
Virginia's
fourth-largest
city
with
29,000
people
and the
seat of
Wood
County,
the cuts
driven
by
Musk's
DOGE
feel
like the
latest
in a
series
of
economic
blows.
Parkersburg
has lost
a third
of its
population
over the
past
five
decades,
mirroring
a
hollowing
out of
manufacturing
across
the
state.
The
glass
producer
Corning
sold its
Parkersburg
factory
in the
1990s,
and in
2005 a
major
shovel
plant
buffeted
by
Chinese
competition
closed.
BFS,
which
manages
the
federal
government's
accounting
and
payment
systems,
is a
provider
of
stable,
solid-paying
jobs in
Wood
County,
where
the
median
household
income
is
two-thirds
the
national
average
and 14%
of the
population
lives
below
the
poverty
line.
The
community
is now
bracing
for
another
round of
layoffs,
with all
government
agencies
ordered
to make
plans to
cut
career
staff by
March
13. That
could
mean
hundreds
more cut
at BFS.
Business
owners
in
Parkersburg
said
they
were
worried
that
more job
losses
would
ripple
through
the
economy
in the
form of
depressed
spending
on
everything
from
clothing
to rent.
The
owners
of the
Blennerhassett
Hotel, a
fixture
of
downtown
Parkersburg
for more
than 130
years
with its
turreted
brick
facade,
have
already
told
staff
that
seasonal
hiring
will be
kept to
a
minimum
for the
usually
busy
summer
months.
"It's a
major
economic
disaster
for our
community,"
said
co-owner
Wayne
Waldeck,
likening
the
potential
scale of
the
expected
job cuts
to
another
factory
leaving
town.
Parkersburg
Brewing,
a local
bar and
eatery,
is also
worried
about a
hit to
demand.
Roughly
one-sixth
of the
brewery's
65
members,
who pay
an
annual
fee for
a larger
pour and
other
perks,
work at
BFS,
manager
Samantha
Gibbs
said.
"They
have the
extra
money to
come
spend at
places
like
this and
give
back to
the
community,
and now
a
percentage
of that
is
lost,"
she
said.
"That's
going to
affect
us
tremendously."
West
Virginia
ranks
third
among
the
contiguous
48
states
in the
percentage
of its
total
workforce
— 3.7% —
in
federal
jobs,
Bureau
of Labor
Statistics
data
shows.
That's
about
double
the
national
average.
Only
Virginia
and
Maryland,
the two
states
closest
to
Washington,
are
higher
at 4.6%
and
5.9%.
John
Deskins,
an
economics
professor
at West
Virginia
University,
said he
is
worried
about
potential
job
losses
at other
large
federal
facilities
in the
state.
"We
stand to
suffer a
disproportionate
share
when
those
jobs
disappear,
when
that
income
disappears,"
he
added.
VETERANS
CAUGHT
IN
LAYOFFS
Roger
Conley
is a
Trump
supporter
who left
the
Republican
Party
last
year
because
he
thought
it was
too
liberal.
In a
Facebook
post
before
BFS
workers
were
cut,
Conley
said
DOGE was
acting
like any
successful
business
in
boosting
efficiency
and
wondered
why
anyone
would
question
its
moves to
lower
costs.
Then his
son lost
his job
at BFS,
according
to union
members.
In a
February
20
Facebook
post,
Conley
said
while he
still
backed
Trump,
he
questioned
the need
to fire
so many
people
so
quickly
and
whether
Musk was
the
right
person
to lead
the
effort.
When
reached
by
phone,
Conley
declined
to
comment.
His son
did not
respond
to
requests
to be
interviewed
for this
story.
Meanwhile
Piggott,
who like
other
fired
probationary
employees
received
no
severance,
faces an
uncertain
future.
She said
she and
her
husband,
a
disabled
military
veteran,
have
been
discussing
ways to
make
ends
meet
including
selling
their
home.
She
teared
up when
talking
about
how many
veterans,
who make
up about
30% of
the
federal
workforce,
had lost
their
jobs at
BFS and
other
agencies.
One
veteran
caught
up in
the BFS
layoffs
was
Chauncy
James,
who was
promoted
twice
during
his 18
months
at BFS,
the
second
time to
building
maintenance.
James,
42, said
he too
worries
about
making
his
mortgage
payment
and
feeding
his five
children.
At last
week's
rally he
marched
with a
sign
criticizing
Musk and
said he
regretted
voting
for
Trump.
"They
are
pretty
much
just
coming
here,
chopping
heads
off,
without
really
doing
their
homework,"
James
said.
"He got
elected
president
and he's
doing a
lot of
things
that
people
never
even
imagined
that he
was
going to
do to
us." her
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