Modest Growth in Federal Workforce
The federal civilian workforce has seen a modest increase, yet salaries have skyrocketed nearly fivefold since 2020. A recent report reveals an 80% rise in government employees earning over $200,000 and $300,000.
According to the nonpartisan organization Open the Books, which analyzed publicly disclosed federal salaries for fiscal 2024, there are currently 2.9 million civil service employees with a total payroll amounting to $270 billion.
The report titled Mapping the Swamp indicates that from fiscal 2020 to now, the number of federal employees has grown by 5%, while their pay has surged by 24%. Notably, those earning over $200,000 and $300,000 have increased by more than 80%.
From fiscal 2020 to four years later, there was a staggering 49% increase in federal employees making $100,000 annually. Additionally, those earning $200,000 or more jumped by 82%, while there was an 84% rise in employees with salaries exceeding $300,000.
The report highlights that over 31,000 federal employees earned more than the president’s annual salary of $400,000 during this period. Excluding the Defense Department, a total of 31,452 federal workers out-earned every state governor in fiscal 2024.
The analysis also noted a reduction in the White House payroll and an unprecedented number of payroll redactions. The White House payroll decreased by 29% from President Biden’s administration compared to President Trump’s tenure.
The former president’s White House payroll for 2024 was reported as the most expensive ever recorded and had the largest headcount since Richard Nixon’s presidency.
The reports from Open the Books trace back to Donald Trump’s first campaign aimed at “draining the swamp.” However, due to claims of exemption from the Freedom of Information Act by the Office of the Vice President, salary data for that office remains inaccessible.
This year’s fiscal payroll saw names redacted for approximately 383,000 individuals across 56 agencies—representing about $38.3 billion in pay—up from around 259,000 names redacted in fiscal year 2020. In stark contrast to just 2016 when only about 2,300 names were withheld from public records.
The Pentagon has also redacted names for its entire civilian workforce totaling around 761,624 individuals with a combined payroll of $62.8 billion.
The report emphasizes that effective measures to drain the swamp require taxpayers’ ability to see through obscured information and assess its depth accurately.
