Posted on 02/25/2025 4:11:13 PM PST by DoodleBob
…
That depends on who you’re counting.
In November 2024, the federal government employed just over 3 million people, or 1.87% of the entire civilian workforce, according to BLS data. That figure doesn’t count the roughly 1.3 million active-duty military personnel, who aren’t typically considered “employees.” It does include the more than 600,000 people who work for the U.S. Postal Service, an independent federal agency with semiautonomous status that operates somewhat like a private business.
Set aside the Postal Service and you have a bit more than 2.4 million federal workers. That makes the federal government the nation’s single largest employer, with even more workers than Walmart, Amazon or McDonald’s. In fact, the Postal Service by itself would, if it were a private business, rank among the 10 largest private-sector employers, ahead of industry rivals UPS and FedEx.
Detailed information on most executive-branch workers – 2,278,730 as of March 2024 – is available through OPM’s FedScope data portal. The rest of this analysis draws mostly from that database. FedScope doesn’t include postal workers, congressional staffers, employees of the government’s various intelligence agencies or presidential appointees who require Senate confirmation.
In absolute terms, it has risen fairly steadily for decades. In November 2000, federal employment – excluding the Postal Service – stood at 1,855,900 people, according to BLS data. That number has grown by a little over 1% each year since then, to 2,405,100 people in March 2024.
While the number of federal workers has grown over time, their share of the civilian workforce has generally held steady in recent years. The federal government (again excluding the Postal Service) accounts for 1.5% of total civilian employment, a share that – except for a temporary bump in mid-2020 for the decennial census – has been largely constant for more than a decade.
The Postal Service’s workforce, on the other hand, has fallen by a third since peaking at a seasonally adjusted 909,000 in April 1999. Despite the agency’s announced intentions to reduce headcount, Postal Service employment has hovered around 600,000 for more than a decade. (We used seasonally adjusted figures for this calculation because Postal Service payroll tends to bump up every December during the busy holiday season.)
Related: The state of the U.S. Postal Service in 8 charts
The Department of Veterans Affairs employs more than 486,000 people, giving it by far the largest payroll of the 18 Cabinet-level departments (noting that OPM counts the Army, Navy and Air Force departments separately). Most of these employees work for the Veterans Health Administration, which operates the VA’s extensive network of hospitals, clinics and nursing homes.
The smallest Cabinet-level department, with 4,245 workers, is the Department of Education. Trump, like many previous Republican presidents, has proposed abolishing the department entirely.
Among independent agencies, the largest employer is the Social Security Administration, with more than 59,000 workers. That’s more than the combined total of five Cabinet-level departments: Education, Energy, Labor, State, and Housing and Urban Development.
Not by a long shot. Fewer than a fifth of the workers in OPM’s database – about 449,500 – work in the District of Columbia or the adjoining states of Maryland and Virginia. Outside that region, California and Texas have the largest contingents of federal employees, with about 147,500 and 130,000, respectively. About 30,800 federal employees work overseas.
The federal workforce is slightly more male: 53.8%, versus 52.8% for all civilian workers. It also skews somewhat older: 28.1% of federal workers are ages 55 and older, compared with 23.6% of the overall workforce. Fewer than 9% of federal employees are younger than 30, compared with 22.7% of all workers.
Racially and ethnically, the federal workforce largely mirrors the overall civilian workforce, with two notable exceptions: A bigger share of federal workers are Black (18.6% vs. 12.8%), and a smaller share are Hispanic or Latino (10.5% vs. 19.5%).
As a whole, federal workers are more educated than the overall civilian workforce. Nearly a third of federal workers (31.5%) have a bachelor’s degree, compared with 27.7% of all employed Americans. And almost 22% of federal workers have an advanced degree, versus 17.6% of all workers.
The most highly educated federal agency, among those with at least 1,000 employees, isn’t NASA or the National Science Foundation, but the U.S. Agency for International Development. Two-thirds of its 4,675 workers hold a master’s degree, doctorate or other advanced degree.
Almost all federal employees (92%) are considered “white collar” workers – that is, in professional, administrative, technical, clerical or similar jobs. But the range of specific federal occupations runs literally from A (740 able seamen) to Z (43 zoologists).
Nearly 364,000 federal employees, or 16% of the federal workforce, are in health-related fields – the single largest occupational category. By contrast, only 134,239 federal workers, or 5.9%, are classified as lawyers or in law-related jobs.
Out of more than 660 specific occupations that OPM lists, the most common are nursing and “miscellaneous administration and program work,” both with more than 111,000 workers; and information technology management, with about 99,000 workers. The federal government also employs some 14,000 custodial workers, about 2,500 welders, 580 cartographers and 21 bakers.
The average annual pay across the entire federal workforce is $106,382, according to OPM, reflecting the skew toward white-collar jobs held by highly educated people. Half of all federal workers make between $50,000 and $109,999 a year. Relatively few (3%) make $200,000 or more, while 8% make less than $50,000.
Pay varies considerably based on what federal workers do and in which office or agency they work. Consider, for example, the agencies with the highest and lowest average salaries:
More than half of federal workers (1.18 million, or 51.8%) have worked for the government (in any civilian capacity) for less than 10 years, according to our analysis of the OPM data. The average tenure across the entire workforce is 11.8 years, but this too varies considerably from agency to agency.
For comparison, the median job tenure for all U.S. wage and salary workers is 3.9 years, according to BLS data.
Most, but not all, have these protections, which shield workers against being disciplined or fired except for just cause. Civil service protections also create specific procedures that agency employers must follow before firing or disciplining employees.
About two-thirds of federal workers (1.5 million, or 67.3%) are in what’s called the “competitive service,” meaning that job applicants compete for positions and are evaluated based on objective criteria, such as written exams. Once they pass a probationary period, employees in the competitive service can’t be fired, suspended, demoted or subjected to other “adverse actions” without cause. They also have the right to written notice of such adverse actions and can respond to or appeal them.
Around 8,700 federal workers (0.4%) are in a special classification called the “Senior Executive Service,” or SES. These high-level employees manage major programs and projects, and they often serve as intermediaries between presidential appointees and career civil servants.
All other workers – roughly 735,000, or 32.2% – are considered “excepted service” employees, meaning their jobs have been exempted from the regular hiring rules. That’s often because their positions require specific skills and it’s considered impractical to examine applicants. Lawyers, teachers and chaplains, for example, often fall into this category.
Also part of the excepted service are employees in jobs of a “confidential or policy-determining character.” Most political appointees to positions that don’t require Senate confirmation are in this category.
Generally speaking, excepted service employees – except for the political appointees referred to above – have the same notice and appeal rights as workers in the competitive service. However, in most cases, those rights don’t become effective until after the worker has been on the job for at least two years, which in practice makes them easier to discipline or fire.
Late in Trump’s first term, he issued an executive order that would have allowed agencies to move certain career employees – those whose jobs were determined to be of a “confidential, policy-determining, policy-making or policy-advocating character” – into a new category of the excepted service. That would have made them easier to hire, discipline or fire, outside the usual civil-service rules. Estimates were that tens of thousands of career employees could have been reclassified under the plan.
President Joe Biden revoked Trump’s order upon taking office, and earlier this year his administration adopted a new rule aimed at protecting career employees from being moved involuntarily to a classification with fewer job protections. However, Trump has said he will reissue the order in his second term.
Pew Research Center has regularly asked Americans about their views on the size and scope of government, their opinions of specific federal departments and agencies, and even whether they have more confidence in career employees or political appointees. Their responses indicate that Americans have, at best, mixed feelings about federal employees and the agencies they work for.
…
I heard today 1 million replied to the Elon email request
Information technology management requires 99,000 workers?
How many of those are working social media?
USPS was self-sustaining via counter sales, then Congress mandated that it fund employee liabilities 15 years in advance.
those million that replied are probably the only ones that actually exist or don’t have an attitude that stinks.
Nuke the rest.
There is a LOT of eye-popping info here.
“The most highly educated federal agency, among those with at least 1,000 employees, isn’t NASA or the National Science Foundation, but the U.S. Agency for International Development. Two-thirds of its 4,675 workers hold a master’s degree, doctorate or other advanced degree.”
What are they up to?
Thanks for posting. Great charts. Really lays it all out there.
My USPS experience has varied, depending upon WHERE is the Post Office.
When I lived in suburban NJ and worked in NYC, in general the counter staff treated me like a war criminal.
Elsewhere in the Northeast, they’ve been at times great though one woman was one of the angriest people I ever met.
In rural areas, the postal employees were, in general, good.
My mailman has ALWAYS been pleasant.
Thank you. Given what’s happening, I hope this will be a helpful, fact-based reference.
It’s always a challenge when posting stuff like this on FR. Too little, you’re accused of being a blog pimp etc. Too much, they beat you up for a long post.
I wrote earlier that Musk should have disabled everyone's email ID and given them 72 hours to call their help desk to have their email restored. That bypasses them having to disclose what they did last week and still achieves the goal of seeing how many emails belong to non-existent people.
As you said, people with bad attitudes might not have responded to Musk, hoping instead to be part of an inevitable class action suit when President Trump follows through with their dismissals.
Making them take action to restore their email IDs is completely different.
-PJ
Thanks for posting.;
Good info for those of us who are mere taxpayers.
Looks like contractors are not included?
As for the USPS and the decline in its total number of workers:
First-Class Mail
In 2023, the USPS handled 46 billion pieces of First-Class Mail, which includes letters, postcards, and large envelopes.
Between 2008 and 2023, the volume of First-Class Mail decreased by 50%.
Market Dominant Mail
In 2023, the USPS handled 109 billion pieces of Market Dominant mail.
Between 2008 and 2023, the volume of Market Dominant mail decreased by 46%.
Of course there was a decrease in USPS employees.
Anyone else notice the Department of Veterans Affairs has more employees than any other single department?
I understand its mission is to serve ALL living veterans, as needed, and that means mutliple living generations of veterans. But, should it require 450K plus employees? Or are organization operations and required procedures really been modernized to the greatest efficiency? One wonders.
So they could “borrow” it
Parts of Fed.gov are probably like the Ukraine Army
A unit may have enough troops for a battalion, but the officers tell the government to give them salaries and resources for a brigade
Let’s also add up all the workers who collect a check from government funded organizations.
While we are at it throw in people who owe their jobs via government regulations or policies. So let’s include a good chunk of public school teachers, union officials, probably millions of private code and regulatory agencies/consultants/inspectors/auditors.
Green scam jobs. As we now know charities and so called NGOs who are government funded.
If you’re employed think of all the jobs at your company to satisfy the EEOC, EPA, OSHA, IRS, etc.
“Higher education” - maybe a majority owe their existence to the governemt.
Then let’s round up all the not-working people who live on monthly government checks.
How many people owe their livelihood to the government? It’s staggering.
Should we move on to state county city township?
Information technology management requires 99,000 workers?
How many of those are working social media?
_________________________
Elon’s team needs to run a program pointing out how much porn is watched during work.
“Let’s also add up all the workers who collect a check from government funded organizations.”
I agree. There are a lot of pass-through dollars. I am especially leery of money going to NGOs.
On a lighter note, why so much for veteran affairs? Can’t veterans have affairs on their own?
Oh, so all those IT guys were needed to manage the computers that were serving all that porn around the agency.
Still, it seems like a lot.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.