As Sears Dismisses Attacks on Virginia Jobs as Not 'Real Issues,' Fired Federal Workers Deal with Devastating Fallout

Sears when asked about the attacks on Virginia jobs: “I’m just not going to participate. Because I want to talk about real issues”

VIRGINIA - Reporting from the Virginia Independent details the challenges fired federal workers face as they deal with the fallout of Donald Trump’s attacks on Virginia jobs as Winsome Earle-Sears continues her pattern of dismissing and downplaying the layoffs. Former federal employee Sarah Cooley said she “was laid off from her job, leaving her and her husband to raise their two school-aged children with a 60% cut to their household income” and that “because her expertise is highly specialized, the open jobs are a poor match for her.” 
 
Sears recently refused to answer whether she supports the jobs cuts, saying she wants “to talk about real issues” instead. She previously was caught on tape downplaying the attacks on Virginia jobs: “the media is making it out to be a huge, huge thing… and I don’t understand why.” Sears also said she would help Trump “get the job done” and that she’s “supporting what the President is doing.” 
 
The Virginia Independent: Fired Virginia federal workers talk about their experiences with Trump job cuts

• The roundtable participants talked about what they experienced as federal workers after Trump returned to the White House in January, from the manner in which they were informed they had lost their jobs to the struggle to survive on reduced income and to find new jobs.
• Sarah Cooley, former director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Ocean Acidification Program, which researched the effects of climate change on oceans, is in a similar situation. She was laid off from her job, leaving her and her husband to raise their two school-aged children with a 60% cut to their household income. 
• Cuts to administrative staff made it difficult to switch to her husband’s insurance, and she received bills for insurance premiums for her former policy even after the switch. 
• And now, after the layoffs, the roundtable participants are all figuring out their next steps.
• Because her [Cooley’s] expertise is highly specialized, the open jobs are a poor match for her, she said in an interview with the Virginia Independent after the event.
• And the loss in income means her family has had to reduce its spending. 
• Cooley worries about the cascading economic impacts as more people curb their spending, telling the roundtable: “Those things are not really seen in these numbers we have right now about the number of unemployed residents, you know, service providers, restaurants, they’re all suffering, and that’s only just beginning to be seen.”