Government Employment

Our Government Employment records are sourced from city, county, state, and federal transparency portals. These records document public sector employees, their positions, departments, and compensation as required by government transparency laws.

• Coverage Federal, State, County, and Municipal governments
• Records 22+ Million government employees
• Sources City/State Transparency Portals, Government Payroll Databases, Open Data Portals
• Legal Basis Freedom of Information Act, State sunshine laws, open records statutes

What Are Government Employment Records?

Government employment records are public documents that detail the names, positions, departments, and compensation of individuals employed by federal, state, county, and municipal government agencies. The United States employs approximately 22 million people across all levels of government, making public sector employment one of the largest categories of workforce data available to the general public. These records exist because of a foundational principle in American governance: taxpayers have the right to know how their money is being spent, including who is being paid and how much they receive.

The tradition of public access to government payroll data has deep roots in American law. At the federal level, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), enacted in 1966 and significantly strengthened in subsequent amendments, establishes that federal agency records are presumptively available to the public unless they fall within one of nine narrowly defined exemptions. At the state level, every state has enacted its own open records law, commonly known as "sunshine laws," which provide similar access to state and local government records. These laws collectively ensure that the public can obtain detailed information about government workforce composition and spending.

Government employment data is not merely a transparency tool. It serves essential functions in public policy analysis, academic research, journalism, and civic engagement. Researchers use this data to study pay equity, workforce demographics, and the efficiency of government operations. Journalists use it to investigate wasteful spending, patronage hiring, and conflicts of interest. Job seekers use it to understand salary ranges and career opportunities in public service. And taxpayer advocacy groups use it to hold elected officials accountable for their staffing and compensation decisions.

Types of Government Employee Data

Government employment in the United States spans five major categories, each with its own data sources and characteristics.

Federal civilian employees number approximately 2.9 million and work across hundreds of agencies, from large departments like Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security to small independent agencies like the National Endowment for the Arts and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Federal employee data is maintained by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and is available through databases like FedScope, which provides aggregated workforce statistics, and through individual agency FOIA disclosures. Federal employee records typically include name, position title, grade level (GS scale or equivalent), base salary, and duty station.

State government employees include workers in executive branch agencies, legislative staff, judicial branch employees, and employees of state-run institutions such as universities and hospitals. State workforce size varies dramatically, from large states like California (approximately 230,000 state employees) and Texas (approximately 150,000) to smaller states like Vermont and Wyoming with fewer than 10,000 each. Most states publish their payroll data through transparency websites, often updated annually or semi-annually.

Local government employees represent the largest category of public workers, with approximately 14 million people employed by counties, cities, towns, townships, school districts, and special districts. This category includes police officers, firefighters, public school teachers, sanitation workers, parks department staff, and municipal administrators. Local government payroll data is typically available through city or county open data portals, annual financial reports, or responses to public records requests.

Military personnel include approximately 1.3 million active-duty service members across the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Space Force, and Coast Guard. While individual military pay records are generally not published in the same way as civilian government salaries, certain information about military personnel is considered public, including name, rank, duty assignment, and pay grade. Military pay scales are published by the Department of Defense and are based on rank and years of service, making it possible to estimate compensation based on publicly available pay tables.

Postal Service employees number approximately 640,000, making the United States Postal Service one of the largest civilian employers in the country. USPS employee data may be available through FOIA requests to the Postal Service, though as a quasi-independent federal agency, it operates under slightly different disclosure rules than executive branch departments. Records typically include employee names, positions, and compensation.

What Information Is Available?

The specific data fields available in government employment records depend on the level of government and the jurisdiction, but several core fields are nearly universal. The employee's full name is included in virtually all payroll disclosures. The job title or position description identifies the role the employee performs, ranging from broad titles like "Program Analyst" to specific titles like "Senior Hydrologist" or "Assistant District Attorney."

The department or agency field identifies the organizational unit within the government where the employee works. This might be a high-level department (Department of Transportation), a specific bureau or division (Bureau of Highway Design), or a local department (Parks and Recreation Department). The salary or compensation field shows the employee's pay, which may be reported as base salary, total compensation (including overtime and benefits), or an hourly rate depending on the jurisdiction and the employee's classification.

Many records also include the hire date or years of service, the employee's employment status (full-time, part-time, or temporary), and the duty location where the employee is assigned. For federal employees, the pay grade (such as GS-12, SES, or WG-7) provides additional information about the employee's position within the government's standardized pay classification system.

Why Government Salary Data Is Public

The public availability of government salary data rests on a straightforward principle: government employees are paid with taxpayer dollars, and taxpayers have a right to know how those dollars are spent. This principle is codified in federal and state law and has been consistently upheld by courts across the country.

At the federal level, FOIA establishes that all federal agency records are available to the public unless they fall within specific exemptions. While FOIA does include a privacy exemption (Exemption 6), courts have generally held that the names and salaries of government employees do not constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, because the public interest in knowing how tax dollars are spent outweighs the employee's privacy interest in their compensation. The Supreme Court has recognized that government transparency is essential to democratic accountability.

At the state level, sunshine laws in all 50 states provide access to government payroll records. Many states go further than the federal government in mandating proactive disclosure: rather than requiring citizens to file records requests, these states require agencies to publish payroll data on public websites. States like Texas, California, New York, and Illinois maintain comprehensive online transparency portals where anyone can search for government employees by name and view their salary information without filing a formal request.

The legal rationale extends beyond simple financial accountability. Public access to government employment data also serves to prevent corruption, patronage hiring, and discrimination. When payroll data is publicly available, it becomes possible to identify patterns of unequal pay, questionable hiring practices, or inflated staffing levels. Investigative journalists have used government payroll data to uncover ghost employees (people on the payroll who do not actually work), nepotism (officials hiring family members to government positions), and salary manipulation (employees receiving raises or bonuses without proper authorization).

Understanding Government Payroll Data

Interpreting government payroll data requires understanding several important distinctions that can significantly affect how compensation figures should be read.

Base salary versus total compensation is perhaps the most important distinction. Base salary represents the employee's standard annual pay for their position and grade level. Total compensation, however, may include overtime pay, shift differentials, hazardous duty pay, locality adjustments, bonuses, and the employer's contribution to benefits such as health insurance and retirement plans. In some jurisdictions, particularly for law enforcement and public safety roles, overtime and special duty pay can significantly increase an employee's total earnings beyond their base salary. It is not uncommon for police officers or firefighters to earn 30% to 50% above their base salary through overtime.

Overtime reporting varies significantly across jurisdictions. Some transparency portals report overtime as a separate line item, allowing the public to see how much of an employee's total pay comes from overtime work. Others combine base pay and overtime into a single total figure. Understanding this distinction is important when comparing salaries across different agencies or jurisdictions, as a high total compensation figure may reflect extensive overtime rather than a high base salary.

Benefits and retirement contributions are another factor that can make government compensation figures seem either higher or lower than they actually are, depending on what is included. The value of government employee benefits, including health insurance, pension contributions, paid leave, and retiree health benefits, can add 30% to 50% to the value of the base salary. Some transparency databases attempt to quantify these benefits, while others report only cash compensation.

Part-time and seasonal employees may appear in payroll databases with annualized salary figures that do not reflect their actual earnings. A part-time employee with an annualized salary of $50,000 who works half-time would actually earn approximately $25,000. Similarly, seasonal employees (such as lifeguards or park rangers employed only during summer months) may show annual salary rates that overstate their actual total pay.

Data Sources and Coverage

Our government employment data is assembled from a wide variety of sources at every level of government. At the federal level, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) publishes workforce data through its FedScope tool and through responses to FOIA requests. The OPM data covers most executive branch civilian employees but excludes certain categories such as intelligence community personnel, certain law enforcement officers, and political appointees whose records may be maintained separately.

State-level data is sourced from individual state transparency portals, open data platforms, and responses to public records requests filed with state comptroller offices, human resources departments, and individual agencies. Many states have made significant investments in online transparency platforms that make payroll data searchable. The depth of information varies by state, with some providing detailed records including overtime, benefits, and employment history, while others provide only basic name, title, and salary information.

Local government data comes from city and county open data portals, annual comprehensive financial reports (ACFRs), and responses to public records requests filed with individual municipalities. Larger cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Houston typically maintain robust online data portals with searchable employee databases. Smaller municipalities may require a formal public records request to obtain payroll data, and the format and completeness of the response can vary widely.

University salary databases are an important subset of government employment data, as public university employees are typically state employees whose compensation is subject to public disclosure. Several states and media organizations maintain dedicated university salary databases that allow searches by institution, department, and individual name. These databases can include faculty, staff, administrators, coaches, and medical professionals employed by public university systems.

Frequently Asked Questions