President Trump’s return¹ to office has been nothing short of a revolution for the administrative state. Or at least so declare the headlines, with one side of the aisle keen to describe the revolution as a liberation and the other to cast it as a violent coup. Personnel changes—most notably, widespread cuts to agency staff—have been central to this coordinated campaign. Personnel is policy, after all.²

Setting hyperbole aside, how meaningful are these personnel changes? Is this time really that different? And given that these changes have largely been accomplished by executive fiat, how likely are they to survive a future administration, particularly one from a different party? 

Given that these changes have largely been accomplished by executive fiat, how likely are they to survive a future administration, particularly one from a different party?

This essay takes stock of personnel changes during the first six months of Trump 2.0. So far, the evidence suggests that changes to capacity, expertise, and political responsiveness may be more significant than reductions in the size of government.

Downsizing the Bureaucratic Workforce 

Since the Kennedy presidency, real federal spending has grown by a factor of more than 7. However, over that same time period, the size of the federal workforce has consistently hovered at about 2 million workers. Trump aimed to drastically reduce the size of this workforce—which he described as “bloated,” “sloppy,” and filled with “a lot of people that aren’t doing their job”³ —and tasked Elon Musk and the newly founded Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with doing much of the downsizing. 

The results included a push to incentivize federal workers to voluntarily separate, the firing of thousands of probationary workers, freezes in hiring, widespread reductions in force, and even the shuttering of agencies like the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Determining a precise body count has been difficult, as data are not available in real time and extensive litigation has paused dismissals in some cases and led to rehiring in others.  

As shown in figure 1, this decrease is surprisingly small relative to both the overall size of the executive branch and the considerable public attention these efforts attracted.

The president’s fiscal year 2026 (FY2026) budget request provides some insight into the administration’s workforce goals. This document requests the number of full-time equivalents (FTEs) that the administration hopes to have in each agency for the upcoming fiscal year. Comparing the number of requested FTEs with those each agency had under the Biden administration in FY2024 reveals a plan to reduce the size of the federal workforce by 5.8 percent—from 2.27 million to 2.14 million workers. As shown in figure 1, this decrease is surprisingly small relative to both the overall size of the executive branch and the considerable public attention these efforts attracted. It is also small relative to other presidents’ efforts—for example, President Clinton shrank the workforce by nearly 20 percent as a part of his National Performance Review (NPR).⁴ Of course, Trump 2.0 has time to catch up with the NPR, but the clock is ticking.

Figure 1. Size of the executive branch, 1940–2026.

Figure 2 shows how the administration’s personnel plans affect 23 key agencies, comparing agencies estimated to have more liberal-leaning missions (blue) with those estimated to have more conservative-leaning missions (red).⁵ Although staff reductions are the order of the day for most agencies, there is an ideological lean to the direction of the cuts. Unsurprisingly, the two hardest hit agencies—USAID and the Department of Education (abbreviated ED)—are on the liberal end of the spectrum. Meanwhile, staffing increases are concentrated among conservative agencies. 

Figure 2. Percentage change in full-time equivalents, fiscal years 2024–2026.⁶

While a 6 percent net reduction in personnel may appear modest, its implications for agency capacity depend on the expertise, institutional knowledge, and skill sets of who stays and who departs. If highly skilled employees depart, or those with specialized competencies, the damage to capacity may far exceed the numeric reduction. Early evidence suggests this may be the case. Deferred resignation programs tend to attract employees with outside opportunities, often the most experienced and mobile personnel; this program accounts for the largest share of separations.⁷ Moreover, the indiscriminate nature of recent probationary terminations and reductions in force suggests that the retention of expertise was not prioritized. 

Bureaucratic capacity may also be impaired by ongoing cuts to federal contracts, a core priority for DOGE. Federal agencies rely heavily on contractors to accomplish much of their day-to-day work. Public administration scholar Paul Light estimates that for every one career civil servant in the federal government, there are two full-time contractors.⁸

Public administration scholar Paul Light estimates that for every one career civil servant in the federal government, there are two full-time contractors.

Agencies under Trump 2.0 do not appear to be turning to contractors in these ways or even trading bureaucratic expertise for contractor expertise. Figure 3 shows widespread reductions in new service contracts for highly skilled services (procurement contracts that involve labor for skilled professional services) initiated in early 2025 relative to the comparable period in the prior year.⁹ These reductions span federal agencies and, unlike staffing cuts, do not seem to show an ideological bias. These contractor cuts suggest that agency capacity deficits may be even larger than suggested by personnel data alone. 

Figure 3. Percentage change in number of new service contracts, 2024–2025.

These staffing reductions are likely to remain over the medium term. While future administrations may be able to restore the bureaucracy to its former size by rehiring workers and reinstating contracts, rebuilding capacity takes time. Following the Clinton administration’s NPR, for example, it took nearly two decades for the bureaucratic workforce to rebound to its pre-Clinton size. For Trump’s agencies, this may mean acute short-term capacity shortages.  

Politicizing the Workforce  

In addition to being slightly leaner, Trump’s bureaucracy may also be more politicized. Although workforce cuts have dominated headlines, the full story of Trump’s plan to transform the bureaucracy includes equally significant efforts to expand the number and influence of political appointees.  

Since the Pendleton Act of 1883, federal hiring has been governed by merit-based principles. While this law dramatically reduced political appointments, it did not eliminate them. Today, there are approximately 4,000 politically appointed positions across the federal government. Although this represents less than 1 percent of the total workforce, it is far above other developed democracies in terms of political penetration into the bureaucracy.¹⁰

Although this represents less than 1 percent of the total workforce, it is far above other developed democracies in terms of political penetration into the bureaucracy.

The administration’s rethinking of merit-based civil service protections has proceeded on multiple fronts. President Trump has signed two executive orders establishing new personnel categories. “Schedule Policy/Career” (a rebranded version of Schedule F) could convert up to 50,000 senior career officials into at-will employees (a back-door entry to politically appointed positions). “Schedule G” expands the number of political appointments exempt from Senate confirmation. At the same time, the Office of Personnel Management has proposed regulatory changes that would make it easier to remove career civil servants for reasons unrelated to performance. 

These moves represent a sharp departure from the meritocratic foundations of the U.S. bureaucracy dating back to the Pendleton Act. Although executive orders and regulations can be undone by future administrations, they may leave behind a durable legacy. Embedded politically aligned personnel may resist efforts to reestablish nonpartisan norms, making reversal difficult without triggering institutional or political backlash. Legal challenges are also likely, and if courts uphold these reforms, they may establish precedents that entrench a politicized civil service and complicate a full return to a merit-based administrative state. 

A Responsive Bureaucracy, but To What End? 

President Trump may well succeed in creating a (somewhat) leaner and more politicized bureaucracy, at least in the short term. In many ways, this transformation aligns with the administration’s broader vision of executive power. A more politically aligned bureaucracy comports with the logic of the unitary executive theory, in which responsiveness to presidential direction is paramount.

A more politically aligned bureaucracy comports with the logic of the unitary executive theory, in which responsiveness to presidential direction is paramount.

These gains come with significant trade-offs. Scholars have long emphasized the tension between bureaucratic responsiveness and neutral competence. Although the U.S. civil service has come to privilege expertise, professionalism, and political independence, the changes described signal a significant reweighting of those priorities. In pursuing greater loyalty and control, the administration risks degrading—or perhaps altogether eliminating—the very capacity it depends on to implement its agenda. Whether this trade-off proves sustainable or self-defeating remains a question for history to answer.

Endnotes

1.

Potter is associate professor of politics, University of Virginia, and senior fellow, Miller Center. She thanks Macy O’Reilly for research assistance. 

2.

This aphorism first emerged in the Reagan White House. See Thomas J. Weko, The Politicizing Presidency: The White House Personnel Office, 1948–1994 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995), 46.

3.

PBS, “Trump Administration Sets Stage for Large-Scale Federal Layoffs,” PBS NewsHour, February 26, 2025, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-administration-sets-stage-for-large-scale-federal-layoffs.

4.

Elaine Kamarck, “Lessons for the Future of Government Reform,” Brookings Institution, June 18, 2013, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/lessons-for-the-future-of-government-reform/.

5.

Agencies are ordered most liberal to most conservative according to ideology estimates developed by Joshua D. Clinton and David E. Lewis, “Expert Opinion, Agency Characteristics, and Agency Preferences,” Political Analysis 16, no. 1 (2008): 3–20. Their estimates are widely used and align with other scholarly estimates of agency ideology, as well as with the proportions of Democrats and Republicans employed, respectively, in an agency.

6.

The following definitions are used in figs. 2 and 3: DOL, Department of Labor; HUD, Department of Housing and Urban Development; HHS, Department of Health and Human Services; ED, Department of Education; EPA, Environmental Protection Agency; USAID, U.S. Agency for International Development; SSA, Social Security Administration; STATE, Department of State; DOT, Department of Transportation; FTC, Federal Trade Commission; USDA, U.S. Department of Agriculture; VA, Department of Veterans Affairs; OPM, Office of Personnel Management; GSA, General Services Administration; DOE, Department of Energy; DOJ, Department of Justice; DOI, Department of the Interior; SEC, Securities and Exchange Commission; OMB, Office of Management and Budget; DHS, Department of Homeland Security; TREAS, Department of the Treasury; COM, Department of Commerce; DOD, Department of Defense.  

7.

Partnership for Public Service, “Federal Harms Tracker: The Cost to Your Government,” January 28, 2025, https://ourpublicservice.org/federal-harms-tracker/cost-to-your-government/.

8.

Paul C. Light, The Government-Industrial Complex: The True Size of the Federal Government, 1984–2018 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018).

9.

I define “highly skilled services” here as service contracts focusing on professional support, management support, or administrative support.

10.

See Jun Makita, “A Study of the Functions of Political Appointees from a Comparative Perspective,” Asian Journal of Comparative Politics 7, no. 1 (2022): 146–61.