Government Employment and the USDA

Of the approximately 2.2 million civilian employees in the federal executive branch, all but ~5,000 are career employees who keep their jobs no matter who wins the next election. 

Among career federal employees, registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by nearly two to one (Spenkuch, Teso & Xu, 2023, p. 1184). 

All of us want the business we work for to expand and grow so there is more opportunity for advancement and income. Federal employees are no different. 

Campaign finance data showed in the 2016 election cycle, 95% of presidential campaign donations made by federal employees went to Hillary Clinton (Swan, 2016). Other researchers compared career employees’ campaign donations with those of agency heads. Their data revealed that by 2014, the last year of available data, in most cabinet agencies, the average career employee gave to candidates who were more liberal than President Obama’s politically appointed agency heads (Feinstein & Wood, 2022; Sherk, 2023, pp. 29–30). 

Most conservative lawmakers want to reduce the size of government and Trump is their leader. 

The USDA employee numbers peaked late in 2024 at over 110,000. An Office of Inspector General (OIG) report confirmed that over 20,300 employees left the USDA in the first half of 2025 alone, primarily taking advantage of voluntary buyout incentives. By mid-2026, the department recorded a net decrease of nearly 16,000 employees after factoring in limited backfill hiring. 

President Trump has always wanted to move thousands of USDA employees out of D.C. to rural America. During the first Trump Administration, the USDA relocated the Economic Research Service (ERS) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) to Kansas City, Missouri. Roughly 75% to 85% of the affected employees chose to quit or retire rather than relocate. About 60 employees made the move to Kansas City by the deadline. 

During Trump’s current administration, a larger reorganization plan aimed at moving more than half of its D.C. area headquarters employees to five regional hubs (Kansas City, Raleigh, Indianapolis, Fort Collins, and Salt Lake City). About 28,000+ USDA employees separated from the agency overall, which the USDA union reports more the same. That is roughly 20% to 27% of its workforce depending on the timeframe. 

We all know Trump’s political support base is Rural America. Only a fool would think none of the USDA employees want to punish Rural America. What better way to punish Rural America than fabricate S&D numbers that injure 10.4% of total U.S. employment working directly in Agriculture. If one includes indirect agriculture employees (grocery stores, truck drivers hauling raw materials to processors, groceries to retail outlets, and textile mill workers, etc), around 30% of America’s workforce is employed in agriculture. On top of that, everybody except producers wants commodity prices low, for cheaper food and lower inputs.   

Courtesy- Wright on the Market