This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist, BPR, a public radio station serving western North Carolina, WBEZ, a public radio station serving the Chicago metropolitan region, and Interlochen Public Radio in Northern Michigan.
On a recent Friday afternoon, Marie Richards sat in her living room in northern Michigan. She was having a hard time talking about her job at the U.S. Forest Service in the past tense.
“I absolutely loved my job,” she said. “I didn’t want to go.”
Richards, a citizen of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, was a tribal relations specialist at the Huron-Manistee National Forests. In mid-February, she found out she was one of the some 3,400 workers who had been targeted for layoffs — an estimated 10 percent of the workforce — as part of the Trump administration’s move to cut costs and shrink the federal government.
Richards watched as some of her colleagues were laid off on February 14 — the so-called Valentine’... Read more
