The White House's plan to downsize the federal government, in charts

Washington Post

19 hours ago

President Donald Trump and his advisers have called for dramatically shrinking the size and scope of the federal government, dispatching officials to agency after agency to block funding and slash staffing.
The Supreme Court has revived the administration's efforts to lay off workers, allowing planned reductions in force to resume in a ruling last week. The State Department announced staff cuts a few days later.
The administration aims to go beyond that. As part of Trump's 2026 budget request, the White House laid out in detail how many employees the executive branch hopes to cut. It envisions a government with 5 percent fewer employees compared to the final year of the Biden administration.
Most agencies expect to have fewer employees in 2026 than in 2024
5% of 2024 total
USAID
-4,255 employees
54%
Education
-1,913
65%
Agriculture
-31,840
69%
NASA
-5,625
71%
Labor
-4,541
73%
HUD
-2,362
83%
HHS
-14,475
84%
Treasury
-16,617
88%
EPA
-1,798
91%
Energy
-1,461
95%
Justice
-6,226
97%
State
-1,034
99%
Veterans Affairs
-4,521
101%
Interior
+840
102%
Transportation
+1,016
103%
Homeland Security
+5,439
106%
Commerce
+2,350
That would cut more than 114,000 jobs, while adding several thousand for immigration enforcement and border security. The government would go from having about 2,142,000 employees in 2024 to about 2,028,000 in 2026. That figure reflects full-time employment, even if one job is done by two part-timers.
Five agencies — responsible for helping homeless Americans, administering foreign aid, investigating chemical safety incidents, protecting consumers from unsafe products and more — would have no staff under Trump's plan, and 14 more agencies would lose at least a third of their employees.
The Agriculture Department, where the White House is calling for the most cuts, would shed more than 31,000 employees — about 35 percent of its 91,000 employees as of last year. About 12,000 such employees work on wildland fire management; more than 10,500 of those positions aren't being eliminated, but instead moved to the Interior Department.
Most major programs in Department of Agriculture face cuts
Forest Service
0%
Forest and Rangeland Research
-1,641 employees
6%
State, Private, and Tribal Forestry
-580
40%
Permanent Appropriations
-726
51%
Trust Funds
-272
53%
Forest Service Operations
-1,514
70%
National Forest System
-4,638
87%
Wildland Fire Management
-1,603
Agricultural Marketing Service
80%
Inspection and Grading of Farm Products
-264 employees
83%
Marketing Services
-179
Executive Operations
75%
Office of Ethics
-202 employees
105%
Working Capital Fund
+137
Food and Nutrition Service
68%
Nutrition Programs Administration
-244 employees
71%
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
-158
Natural Resources Conservation Service
39%
Conservation Operations
-2,481 employees
92%
Farm Security and Rural Investment Programs
-525
Agricultural Research Service
79%
-1,307 employees
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
85%
-1,180 employees
Farm Production and Conservation
64%
-586 employees
Farm Service Agency
79%
-666 employees
Food Safety and Inspection Service
98%
-205 employees
Foreign Agricultural Service
86%
-79 employees
National Agricultural Statistics Service
59%
-344 employees
Office of the Secretary
39%
-578 employees
Rural Development Administration
72%
-1,249 employees
Only programs that had at least 500 employees in 2024 are included. In some cases, job losses may be offset by gains in other programs if staff are moved from one office or agency to another.
NASA, too, would shrink from 18,000 employees last year to about 12,300 in 2026, a cut of more than 30 percent. Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, until recently a trusted adviser to Trump, advocated preserving much of NASA's resources — now it's unclear if his acrimonious departure from the White House will change the president's plan for the agency.
The departments of Education, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, all longtime targets of some conservative policymakers, would also see thousands fewer employees.
The State Department announced over 1,300 layoffs earlier this week, The Post reported — a similar number to the 1,465 cuts in Trump's budget, offset by about 400 new jobs.
The departments of Commerce and Homeland Security would gain thousands of new jobs, including at the Patent and Trademark Office, Customs and Border Protection, and the Coast Guard.
Estimated number of employees in each agency in 2026
Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security remain the agencies with most employees
Veterans Affairs
456K est. employees in 2026
Homeland Security
218K
Justice
111K
Treasury
90K
HHS
70K
Interior
65K
Agriculture
59K
Transportation
56K
Commerce
43K
State
30K
Energy
15K
EPA
14K
NASA
12K
Labor
11K
HUD
6.4K
Education
2.2K
USAID
222
Trump's budget does not include proposed staffing levels for the Defense Department; a separate document with Defense budget estimates will be published this month, the White House budget office has said.
Jake Spring and Ruby Mellen contributed to this report.