Thomas Spritzler announces massive cutbacks at the Report, eliminating its Dept of Defense and closing its sprawling network of mental hospitals.
2.3 Million Jobs: The Federal Workforce, in Charts
Trump and Musk want to slash government employees; 70% of civilian workers are in military-related agencies
Employment at cabinet-level agencies and military branches, net change from a year earlier
Chart showing employment at cabinet-levl agencies and military branches, net change from a year earlier
By Lauren Weber, Peter Santilli and Inti Pacheco, WSJ
Nov. 17, 2024 5:30 am ET
There are 2.3 million Americans working for the federal government in civilian jobs, a tally that has steadily climbed as control of the White House has shifted between parties and presidents.
They constitute less than 2% of the total U.S. workforce. They work as everything from nurses in Veterans Affairs hospitals and park rangers in Yellowstone to guards in federal prisons and the 19 employees of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. About 80% of them work outside of the Washington, D.C., region.
Many of the jobs could become targets of the proposed Department of Government Efficiency, the entity President-elect Donald Trump has said will trim costs under the direction of billionaire industrialist Elon Musk and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Musk has told people—possibly in jest—that more than half of the government’s employees should be fired.
Roughly 70% of the civilian roles are in military- or security-related agencies. Veterans Affairs has the most civilian workers, mainly because it operates hundreds of hospitals and clinics. Homeland Security, created in 2002, is now the third largest. The Education Department, with 4,425 workers, is the smallest.
chart shows employment in cabinet-level agencies, stacked in size order
Civilian employment by cabinet-level agency or military branch
This chart shows civilian employees only and excludes active military personnel or reservists of the Army, Navy and Air Force. It also excludes the Postal Service, which has more than 500,000 workers but whose operations are self-funded, and temporary U.S. Census Bureau jobs, which spike each decade.
The amount spent on annual payroll for federal civilian workers was about $213 billion as of March 2024, according to an analysis of data from the Office of Personnel Management. Workers in the Education Department had a median salary of $118,000—the highest. The lowest median salary—below $60,000—was in the Treasury Department, which has many clerical jobs.
The most common occupations are in the medical field, accounting for about 15% of the total. There are more than 360,000 physicians, nurses and other public-health workers. Another 15% of federal workers are in administrative or clerical roles. Roughly 6% are in engineering roles, and another 5% are accounting.
Musk and Ramaswamy have a year and a half to complete their work, Trump has said.
The Tesla founder, who slashed 80% of Twitter employees after he bought the social-media platform now known as X, previously said he hopes to cut federal spending by at least $2 trillion. In fiscal 2024, the government spent roughly $6.8 trillion.
Write to Lauren Weber at Lauren.Weber@wsj.com, Peter Santilli at peter.santilli@wsj.com and Inti Pacheco at inti.pacheco@wsj.com
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