More “alternative facts!”
Yesterday Trump signed a memo freezing Federal hiring. In announcing this, Spicer
shed further light on the plan at a press conference Monday, claiming that it “counters the dramatic expansion of the federal workforce in recent years.”
Now look at the official Office of Personnel Management numbers for the Obama years:
| Year | Executive branch civilians (thousands) | Uniformed military personnel (thousands) | Legislative and judicial branch personnel (thousands) | Total Federal personnel (thousands) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 2,774 | 1,591 | 66 | 4,430 |
| 2010 (census) | 2,776 | 1,602 | 64 | 4,443 |
| 2011 | 2,756 | 1,583 | 64 | 4,403 |
| 2012 | 2,697 | 1,551 | 64 | 4,312 |
| 2013 | 2,698 | 1,500 | 63 | 4,231 |
| 2014 | 2,663 | 1,459 | 63 | 4,185 |
It seems pretty clear that through 2014 the actual numbers have fallen. There was no “dramatic expansion” of the federal workforce. However, that’s been an article of faith on right-wing talk radio and cable television, and that’s the world the former RNC apparatchik Spicer comes from, so of course it’s true.