In a Jan. 1 editorial about Trump offering buyouts to federal workers, the Chicago Tribune repeated Trump’s lie that he “was elected having promised to try and curb that expansive workforce [federal bureaucracy].”
The fact is that the number of federal employees relative to the size of the U.S. population has been shrinking. Even as the number and complexity of services provided by government has increased over the years, the amount of federal civilian employees has stayed relatively stable. In absolute terms, today’s workforce of about 2 million people is smaller than the workforce that served at the height of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.
The challenge for government is the U.S. population that federal employees now serve. As of 2018, it was 329 million — 130 million more people than there were in 1967. Therefore the federal workforce as a percentage of the total U.S. population is at a near historic low. In fact, the federal workforce as a share of the population has fallen by 14% just since 2010, driven by a net loss of 12,400 employees and an increase in U.S. population of 17 million.
At the end of fiscal 2018, the workforce represented just 0.6% of the population, a far cry from the historic high of nearly 2.5% at the end of World War II in 1945.
Because federal agencies are serving a growing population with a workforce that is shrinking in proportion, efficiency is critically important. Contrary to Trump’s lies, repeated by the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board, the current federal workforce is the smallest and most efficient federal workforce in the history of the United States.
There is no “expansive federal bureaucracy” — that is just one of Trump’s many lies, repeated by sources such as the Chicago Tribune. The entire concept of DOGE is a scam
(Data sources: U.S. Census Bureau and Office of Personnel Management)
Interestingly enough, in 2023, state government employment increased by 273,000, the largest calendar-year percentage gain since 1968. In January 2024, state and local governments employed more than 20 million people, or 13% of total U.S. employment, and 10 times greater than the federal government workforce.
Alan E. Krause
Retired 43-year federal employee
Oak Park