The Swamp Got Bigger, Better Paid & More Secretive Since 2020

If you were told a business increased their staff headcount by 5% over four years but its payroll rose 24% over that time, all the while withholding the names of 39% of their staff, would you invest in that company?

Unlikely. But that’s just what the United State government does, funded by taxpayer dollars and operating as if accountable to no one.

Open the Books analyzed the FY 2024 payroll records of executive agencies and found that 2.9 million federal employees were paid $270 billion, compared to 2.8 million employees paid $217 billion in FY 2020. While the civilian employee ranks grew 5%, pay grew nearly 5 times as much, 24%.

The Office of Personnel Management provided the pay for over 1.5 million executive agency bureaucrats; Department of Defense provided pay for its 761,624 civilian employees; and United States Postal Service gave its 638,007 employees’ payroll, via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Not included are pay for judicial branch employees; the 535 members of Congress and their staff; the 1.3 million active-duty military members; the Office of the Vice President (which claims itself entirely exempt from FOIA); nor the staff of several intelligence agencies.

While payroll records don’t include benefits, adding an estimated 30% to the $270 billion payroll brings total costs to $351 billion.

That means the disclosed federal workforce costs the American taxpayer $673,000 per minute, $40.4 million per hour, and just under $1 billion per day.

Meanwhile, more than a million civilian names were redacted from payroll productions produced by Office of Personnel Management and Department of Defense.

The Trump administration has a historic opportunity to bring much-needed transparency to the administrative state. While federal employees don’t add as much to the debt as safety net programs, defense, and overall agency spending, they are an indicator of government growth.

A New Minimum Wage? $100,000 Earners

These employees are now being paid more than ever before.

The average pay exceeded $100,000 in 117 of 127 executive agencies and the White House.

In FY 2024, there were 31,452 federal employees who out-earned every governor of the 50 states. That includes the highest paid, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who collects a $250,000 salary.

Even worse, there were 956 federal employees who outearned the president himself.

The vast majority — 939 people — are medical officers at the Veterans Health Administration, while another 15 doctors at the National Institutes of Health earning more than $400,000.

Two more people outearned the president: Micah Nix, an emergency room doctor with the Indian Health Service, part of Department of Health and Human Services and one other redacted employee working at Bureau of Prisons, part of Department of Justice.

The highest paid federal employee is cardiologist Gary H. Gibbons, Director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health. He earned $519,246 last year.

Lest one think these highly paid doctors are the only ones raking in big checks, the payroll is top-heavy across the board.

Of the 2.1 million non-DOD employees in FY 2024, 793,537 people made $100,000 or more, a 49% increase from 532,784 people in FY 2020.

There were 68,445 employees who earned $200,000 or more – an 82% increase from 37,631 in FY 2020.

Those making $300,000 or more numbered at 14,144 – an 84% increase from 7,692 in FY 2020.

At least 20 federal agencies have an average pay above $150,000. Topping the list is Commodity Futures Trading Commission, where the 721 staffers make an average of $236,006.

The obscure Public Buildings Reform Board and Arctic Research Commission each pay their staff an average of $192,000, while the 1,851 employees of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau earn an average pay of $187,120.

Boards for Civil Rights Cold Case Review, Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight, and Surface Transportation have average pay between $166,091 and $181,903.

The Swamp Gets Larger

In the largest federal agencies, there’s little correlation between employee headcounts and increased pay.

In most cases, even a decrease in headcount still led to an increase in total pay for that agency.

For instance, the Post Office lost 6% of its staff between FY 2020 and FY 2024, yet payroll increased 11% during that time.

At Department of Justice, headcount decreased less than 1% but its payroll nonetheless increased 16%.

Social Security Administration and Department of Commerce both lost staff in those years, 4% and 8%, respectively, but their payrolls still increased 11% and 13%.

At the agencies where headcount increased, payroll soared past them. Department of Homeland Security increased its staff by 6% but its payroll went up 26%. Department of Transportation saw its staff grow by 3% but its payroll by 19%.

Those that grew headcount significantly saw their payroll skyrocket, including a 19% staff increase at both Department of Health and Human Services and Department of State, with 39% and 35% increased payrolls, respectively.

A 20% increase in Department of Energy headcount led to a 37% increase in paychecks.

Top 20 Departments and Agencies by Employee Count
FY 2024 Compared to FY 2020

“Name Withheld” for 39% of Staff

The secrecy of the federal bureaucracy has worsened.

It’s bad enough that Department of Defense redacted all 761,624 civilian employee names from their payroll, and that records production excludes pay for 1.3 million active-duty military members.

When Open the Books requested the FY 2022 federal payroll, the Biden administration had redacted the names of 350,860 rank-and-file employees.

In the most recent FY 2024 production a record-breaking 383,000 names were redacted in 58 federal agencies. Back in FY 2016, a mere 2,300 names were redacted. What gives?

Many of those include investigative and law enforcement roles in agencies including Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, Treasury and Veterans’ Affairs — which account for 97% of the redactions.

But still, dozens of additional agencies redacted names, from two each at U.S. Agency for Global Media, Office of National Drug Control Policy and Armed Forces Retirement Home, to over 1,000 each in Departments of Labor, Agriculture, Transportation and Health and Human Services. At Department of Interior, 2,331 identities were redacted.

The payroll report also contains no information about staff in the Office of the Vice President.

That’s because the Office of the Vice President claims not to be subject to FOIA and is not listed on the FOIA website.

Open the Books has tried unsuccessfully in the past to obtain the salaries through open records requests, and has accessed limited payroll information in the semi-annual Report of the Secretary of the Senate.

In the most recent report covering Oct. 1, 2024, through March 31, 2025, we can see that Kamala Harris ended her stay in the office with 43 staffers, while J.D. Vance began his vice presidential term with 23 staffers.

As the federal headcount and payroll grow, there are far too many redactions and blind spots that DOGE should have identified and fixed. We can’t have accountability for the federal workforce without better transparency.