Social media post inflates federal workforce growth under Joe Biden

President Joe Biden presided over an increase in federal government employees during his four-year term, but it wasn’t nearly as high as what some social media posts have claimed. 

"At the start of the Biden regime, the federal workforce was at 2.1 million," said one X post from Errol Webber, a documentary film producer who frequently shares conservative content. "By the end of the Biden regime, the federal workforce had increased to 3 million. There has been a 46% increase since Biden took office."

The same numbers in the post were listed in an earlier post by conservative commentator Mario Nawfal, which has since been deleted. 

Biden oversaw a bigger growth in the federal workforce than any presidential term in the last 30 years. But the X post exaggerated the growth by giving the wrong count for the start of Biden’s term.

Data show: 

• The federal civilian workforce increased by 4.8% during Biden’s term — not by almost 50%.

• There were about 2.89 million federal employees when Biden took office, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — not 2.1 million.

When Biden left office, there were about 3.02 million federal employees, Bureau of Labor Statistics figures show. The count included about 600,000 postal workers who were not paid by taxpayer dollars because the U.S. Postal Service is generally self-funded. It also included congressional staffers and other employees outside the executive branch. It excludes the military’s 1.3 million active-duty uniformed service members, who are generally not counted among federal employees.

President Donald Trump oversaw a modest increase in federal government hiring during his first term, with a 2.6% increase in the federal workforce. There were about 2.81 million federal workers when Trump entered office in January 2017, and 2.89 million when he left in January 2021. 

Since 2000, the number of federal government workers has increased by 9.2%, largely staying between 2.7 million and 2.8 million until the count surpassed 3 million during Biden’s term. The number of employees briefly spiked every 10 years during the decennial censuses. 

And the numbers have been higher: From 1985 to 1994, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, there were more than 3 million federal employees. The number dropped by 11% during President Bill Clinton’s tenure as he implemented measures to streamline the federal workforce. 

It’s unclear where the incorrect 2.1 million figure came from.

The Office of Personnel Management provides detailed information on executive branch employees, which excludes postal workers, congressional staffers and intelligence agency workers. The number of people working in the executive branch was at around 2.17 million in December 2020, shortly before Biden took office. The number grew by about 5.5%, to 2.29 million in May 2024, the most recent month available. 

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During a similar window of Trump’s first term, from December 2016 to June 2020, the number of executive branch workers increased by about 3.2%.

Biden increased hiring in all but two Cabinet-level agencies, as well as at most independent agencies.

The departments that saw biggest personnel increases during Biden’s term were the State, Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, Treasury and Energy departments, Government Executive reported in January. 

The Defense and Commerce departments lost workers.

Although federal employment ticked up during Trump’s first term, he cut staff at most federal agencies. Employment increased at the Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs and the Defense Department, offsetting cuts elsewhere in the executive branch, Government Executive reported. The Education, State and Labor departments saw the biggest employment cuts, all shrinking more than 10%. 

Trump has made slashing the federal workforce a top priority of his first month back in office. Trump’s administration terminated thousands of employees on probationary status Feb. 13, a day after a federal judge greenlit a buyout offer that the White House said 77,000 employees had accepted before it closed. Labor unions sued the Trump administration over the probationary employee firings. 

A social media post said the federal workforce "was at 2.1 million" when Biden took office and "had increased to 3 million" by the time he left.

The federal workforce grew by about 4.8% during Biden’s term, increasing from 2.89 million in January 2021 to 3.02 million in January 2025. Measuring just executive branch employees, the count increased by about 5.5%, from 2.17 million to 2.29 million. 

We rate the claim False.