As the United States marks its 250th anniversary, WTOP presents “250 Years of America,” a multipart series examining the innovations, breakthroughs and pivotal moments that have shaped the nation since 1776.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield Federal Employee Program is proud to partner with WTOP to bring you this series.
In 1776, the young nation’s population was around 2.5 million people. Today, in 2026, the federal government employs 2.6 million.
As we look back over the last 250 years, the change in the function of the United States government is nearly immeasurable. During that time, the federal workforce grew to match what the country and its people needed.
1789 — population ~3.9 million; 13 states
After then-Gen. George Washington took the oath of office at Federal Hall in New York and became the young republic’s first commander-in-chief, the federal payroll fit on a single ledger page.
The Washington administration was small and practical, with customs officers, marshals, postmasters and clerks as the main members of the federal workforce. The work was local, tied to ports and courts.
1826 — population ~9—10 million; ~24 states
John Quincy Adams, the last connection between the Founding Fathers, was president in 1826. The country’s map had pushed west and the payroll had grown.
Federal jobs had evolved to lighthouse keepers, wilderness surveyors and horseback postmasters running the day-to-day business of settlement and commerce.
Political favors were the main way to get one of those prized positions in the government. The era of “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” was still going strong.
1876 — population ~45 million; ~38 states
A decade after the Civil War, as the United States celebrated its centennial, the nation was closer to Jefferson’s declaration that “all men are created equal.”
More than a decade after the end of the Civil War, the government was suddenly paying tens of thousands of people. Those duties included managing veterans’ pensions, sorting through westward land claims and dealing with a growing regulatory burden.
One issue that needed to be addressed was merit-based hiring. The spoils system placed unqualified people in positions, leading to corruption and incompetence. It would take seven years before merit-based hiring officially replaced the corrupt spoils system.
1926 — population ~100+ million; 48 states
The United States was now a global powerhouse that the rest of the world takes seriously.
After the nation lost nearly 800,000 Americans in World War I and from the Spanish flu, Americans were having fun in the Roaring Twenties and the continental union was complete.
Calvin Coolidge, the man who said the business of the nation was business, oversaw a federal workforce that had become highly specialized. Along with traditional clerks, the government now had engineers, statisticians and inspectors on its payroll.
The hundreds of thousands of civilian employees enforced new industrial standards, ran veterans’ health services, and kept a vastly larger postal system moving. The days of simple bookkeeping for civil service were over.
1976 — population ~218 million; 50 states
By the bicentennial, Gerald Ford oversaw the nation that had put a man on the moon.
The country had evolved thanks to the expansions and wartime mobilization, which turned government work into a lifelong career. Standardized pay, robust pensions and stable benefits anchored a professional workforce that supplied deep technical expertise across massive new agencies.
So along with the clerks at Social Security, the country employed environmental enforcers at the EPA and rocket scientists at NASA.
2026 — population ~344 million; 50 states
When President Donald Trump moved back into the White House in 2025, he made it clear he wanted a smaller federal workforce and he did just that, cutting civilian jobs faster than any modern president.
On the federal payroll are cybersecurity engineers guarding federal networks, data scientists tracking fraud and threats and healthcare workers caring for millions of veterans. Plus, you have roles that didn’t exist a generation ago, like cloud architects and AI specialists.
Now, as we look back at the ever-evolving federal workforce, paper pushers are a thing of the past. Even though the ledger has been replaced by the cloud, the purpose stays the same: keeping the country running.
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