Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Federal Contracting in Northern Virginia Reaches $60 Billion Annually

—

by

sherlockj
in ,

Northern Virginia

by James C. Sherlock

The Washington Business Journal (WBJ) reported today that annual federal contracting in Northern Virginia has reached $60 billion. That compares to federal contracting there of $33.7 billion in 2000 (2020 dollars).

As a reference points, I consulted St. Louis Fed data for Virginia GDP in those same years and converted the 2000 data to 2020 dollars.

The GDP of Virginia in 2020 was $551.8 billion. In 2000 the GDP of the state was $412.1 billion in 202o dollars.

So, the percentage of Virginia GDP attributable to federal contracting in Northern Virginia increased from 8.1% in 2000 to 10.9% in 2020.

No comment, just observation.

Share this article

ADVERTISEMENT

(comments below)

ADVERTISEMENT

(comments below)

Comments

10 responses to “Federal Contracting in Northern Virginia Reaches $60 Billion Annually”

  1. how_it_works Avatar
    how_it_works

    Just try to find an IT job in Northern Virginia that isn’t a Federal contracting job. It’s like private sector IT jobs don’t even exist.

    1. energyNOW_Fan Avatar
      energyNOW_Fan

      Well we had ExxonMobil who wanted to be in DC area way back. They left but then we got Amazon who had the same idea (getting close to DC) 40 years later …but it is just a few private companies that want to be here to be close to the policy makers.

      1. how_it_works Avatar
        how_it_works

        Whomever it was at Mobil that decided to locate their corporate HQ in Fairfax needed to get their head examined.

        1. energyNOW_Fan Avatar
          energyNOW_Fan

          It was different era, no internet etc. and cheaper land here I assume vs. NYC.

          1. how_it_works Avatar
            how_it_works

            Around the 1988/89 time frame Mobil had an employee newsletter for employees in the DC region.

            One issue of the newsletter included advice on how to deal with the horrible traffic and road raging drivers.

            I’m guessing that the move to NoVA wasn’t real popular with their rank-and-file employees.

  2. Stephen Haner Avatar
    Stephen Haner

    I’ve listened to 40 years of speeches about how we need to wean our economy of this dependence thinking all the time, yeah, that’s gonna happen.

  3. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    And, do tell, what agency/dept is the big pig?

    1. WayneS Avatar
      WayneS

      Well, HHS in toto takes a little over 25%. Defense about 11%.

      Those are the biggest, I think.

      1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
        Dick Hall-Sizemore

        It is amazing that HHS accounts for than twice that of Defense.

        1. WayneS Avatar
          WayneS

          Yes it is.

Leave a Reply

Read More