Who, really, are the federal employees now under fire?
Trump & Co. are trying very hard to intimidate federal employees, and, of course, name calling is part and parcel: “criminals,” “worms,” “radical lunatics,” “insubordinates.”
But then, taking their cue from the President, GOP lawmakers have been denigrating federal workers for a while. A couple of years ago, Sen. Grassley referred to some IRS personnel as “jack-booted thugs.”
Early polling suggests that a solid majority of Americans are OK with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency taking an ax to the federal workforce and bringing the “deep state” to heel.
As a former federal employee (29 years as a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Information Agency and Department of State) I thought it might be useful to do a primer on the federal workforce, so we all know what we are talking about.
First, there are 2,079,142 uniformed service personnel in the U.S. military and 778, 539 civilian employees in DOD, which is 35% of the federal civilian workforce. We don’t expect the Trump administration to shrink the military.
There are 1.9 million civilian federal employees (so about 1.12 million non-DOD employees). Of these, about 20% live and work in the DMV (The District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia) and 80% work throughout the country and the world. There are 44,760 federal employees in Illinois, which includes DOD.
They earn between $15,278 and $269,735 (medical officers) annually. Half make between $50,000 and $100,000 a year. The average is about $109,000.
The largest federal agency is the Department of Veterans Affairs with 433,000 employees. There are 18.1 million veterans and the Veterans Health Administration, which operates 170 veterans’ medical centers and 1,193 outpatient clinics, is the largest integrated health care system in the country.
Illinois has 11 of these centers, 20 clinics, and 13 Community Based Outpatient Clinics as well as five veterans’ homes.
So, it is not surprising that the largest percentage of civilian federal employees (15.5%) are doctors, nurses, public health, and other medical personnel such as researchers at places like the National Institutes of Health.
After the VA, the next biggest is Homeland Security, which was created after 9/11 and brought together a host of different agencies under one umbrella. That’s about 212,000 employees. Since they deal with border security, the administration will probably want to grow that, too.
The civilian federal workforce is 55% male and 45% female. It is just under 60% white, 18.8% African American, 10 percent Hispanic and, 6.7% Asian. It is older than the general population with 42.5% over 50 (compared with 33.2% of the general population). It is better educated — 53.8% have a college or advanced degree (compared with 40% of Americans overall). There are about 44,000 lawyers. The workforce has stayed steady as a percentage of the overall U.S. population in the last 15 years at about 0.60%.
Generally, federal workers are apolitical. One must be. One works for both Republican and Democratic administrations as I did. However, they are professionals, and many have decades of experience, so they have opinions on the best way to do things in their area of expertise. Each new administration can choose to listen to them, or not.
As the new administration tries to cull the workforce, we can have a constitutional crisis and court cases, or an orderly debate about priorities and the consequences of cuts here or there. Congress might consider doing its job.
All I know is that when I took my oath to protect and defend the constitution, I was proud and understood I worked for the American people. I think most federal employees, who, incidentally, are normal people, feel the same way.
• Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86. His new book “American Dreams: The Story of the Cyprus Fulbright Commission” is available from Amazon.com.