How many federal workers are there?

By Ed O'Keefe

Remember last week when Congressional Republicans proposed freezing federal hires in order to cut back on government spending? The cuts would mean fewer workers receiving generous pay and benefits, they said. But opponents argued that the government can't afford to cut back and that most of the new federal jobs are in the national security and defense sectors where Republicans wouldn't cut anyway.

Still others noted that the size of the federal workforce compared to the overall U.S. population has dropped steadily since the 1960s, thanks to a booming population and cutbacks made during the Reagan and Clinton years.

So how many federal workers are there really?

Differing ways of measuring federal employment produce different counts. One method, commonly used in federal budgeting, is to calculate "full-time equivalent" positions, or FTEs, on a fiscal year basis. A full-time employee working the entire year would count as one FTE, as would, for example, two part-time employees each working half-time. Another method, used in the Office of Personnel Management's FedScope database, counts all employees who are in pay status as of the end of each calendar quarter.

The Eye's method of tallying up the workers uses figures from George W. Bush's administration that tallied the total number of Executive Branch employees -- including U.S. Postal Service workers -- and determined the number of federal workers per 1,000 Americans.

In order to establish a somewhat fair administration-to-administration comparison, The Eye compared workforce totals from the first full calendar year of a president's term, starting with John F. Kennedy.

We'll take a deeper dive into other personnel stats in the coming days, but check out today's figures and leave your thoughts in the comments section below:

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

Researcher Eric Yoder contributed to this report.

Leave your thoughts in the comments section below

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