The Trump Administration has made reducing the number of people working for the federal government a prominent goal for its first few months. Already, the administration has sought to close USAID (which provides services to developing countries), offer early retirement buyouts to all federal workers, and assess the effectiveness of employees at certain agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
To lead these efforts, the Administration has leaned on the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by billionaire Elon Musk. In previous work, I estimated the potential local impacts of cutting the federal civilian workforce by 75 percent, an early number floated by members of DOGE. That work found that these reductions would disproportionately raise unemployment rates in relatively small labor markets with federal correctional facilities or military installations.
Here, I reuse the data used from my previous work—which combined counts of federal civilian workers across Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas (together, called Core Based Statistical Areas or CBSAs) and matched employment and labor force data—and further match county-level results from the 2024 presidential election. I aggregate the county-level election results to CBSAs to analyze the relationship between them and the share of people who work for the federal government (because Alaska administers presidential elections at the house district-level, not the county-level like other U.S. states, it is not included here.) The election results referenced here are not measured in federal election areas like congressional districts and may cross state borders. You can explore the data in detail below.
This analysis reveals that more CBSAs voted for President Trump in the election but more federal civilian workers live in CBSAs that voted for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Overall, 735 CBSAs voted for President Trump compared with 186 that voted for Harris. The areas won by Trump employ about 819,000 federal civilian workers, who account for 1.2 percent of those area’s total labor force. By comparison, 1.3 million federal civilian workers work in areas won by Harris and make up 1.4 percent of the total labor force across those areas.
Ultimately, efforts to reduce the federal workforce will likely be targeted at specific agencies or industries and not affect every area or region equally. But the data tell a clear story. Although more federal workers live in areas that voted for Kamala Harris, more communities depend on federal jobs in areas that voted for Donald Trump.
This and the last post have been very compelling. You answer a question I have been wondering about. I would hope that those with some power over everyday lives and the media would use data driven research to craft a more compelling and less chaotic message like you show here. Thank you for your work.