November 4, 2011--Factoid: Number of Federal Workers

I am not very good at making charts, but the messy one below is revealing and puts a lie to some of the extravagant claims that Democrats are by nature big government people while Republicans, when in power, shrink the size of the federal government.

To help you read the chart, as an example, look at the Kennedy line. In 1962 the total number of civilian federal employees was 2.48 million. The U.S. Population was 186.5 million, which means that there were 13.3 employees per thousand Americans.

Working your way down the chart you will see that Nixon added to the size of the government as did George H. W. Bush, while Republicans Gerry Ford and Ronald Reagan reduced the number slightly.

Note especially that both George W. Bush and "socialist" Barack Obama had and have the smallest percentage of federal workers, 9.1 and 8.4 percent respectively. By the numbers Obama is the smallest-government president in modern history.

Also interesting is the fact that the actual number of federal employees fluctuated very little from 1962 to the present.

So, as with many issues, things are more complicated that the demagogues assert.


Federal Government Employment Levels Through the Years (including the U.S. Postal Service)

Executive Branch civilian
Employees Total U.S. population Executive Branch employees
per 1,000 population

1962 (Kennedy) 2.48 million 186.5 million 13.3
1964 (Johnson) 2.47 million 191.8 million 12.9
1970 (Nixon) 2.94 million* 205 million 14.4
1975 (Ford) 2.84 million 215.9 million 13.2
1978 (Carter) 2.87 million 222.5 million 12.9
1982 (Reagan) 2.77 million 232.1 million 11.9
1990 (Bush) 3.06 million* 249.6 million 12.3
1994 (Clinton) 2.9 million 263.1 million 11.1
2002 (Bush) 2.63 million 287.8 million 9.1
2010 (Obama) 2.65 million+ 310.3 million+ 8.4+

SOURCE: Office of Management and Budget. *= Figure includes temporary Census Bureau workers. += Estimates by OMB and U.S. Census Bureau.