[senordevnyc]

Doesn't pass the smell test since the chart for government employees clearly includes more than just Federal. The Federal workforce is about 3mm, but that graph shows 23mm [1], so it clearly can't just be Federal employees.

EDIT: here you go, just looking at Federal employees [2]:

Jan 2021: 2.89 million

Jan 2025: 3.02 million

The Federal government added ~130k employees over the four years that Biden was in office, an increase of about 4.4%.

During that exact same period, all private employment went from 121 million to 135 million, an increase of about 11%. So Federal employment grew slower under Biden than private employment did. [3]

Sources:

1. Total government employees: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USGOVT

2. Total Federal government employees: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES9091000001

3. Total private employment: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USPRIV

[andro_dev]

Thanks for the additional information. The thing is the Trump administration is about to fire 200k probationary federal employees meaning they were hired within in the last year or so. These numbers don't add up either.

[sn9]

"A probationary employee is often a recent hire to the agency or *a long-serving employee who was moved or promoted into a new position*. They are put on a "probationary" period that typically lasts for one or two years, though it can be longer at some agencies. It's like a trial period during which the worker and their performance are under heightened scrutiny."

source: https://www.npr.org/2025/02/15/nx-s1-5298182/trumps-probatio...

[johnnyanmac]

Yeah, I know FRED is a legit source, but I have absolutely horrible experiences everytime some internet rando is trying to interpret their charts. Just two random FRED charts with marker ink on them already was sending red flags.