Terry JonesThere’s been a lot of talk in recent weeks about shrinking the federal government workforce. Is this something Americans want? Not necessarily. The latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows that most Americans think the federal workforce should either be larger or the same size.
This month’s national online I&I/TIPP Poll, taken from Sept. 30 to Oct. 2, asked 1,459 participants: “Overall, do you think the federal workforce today is: 1) too large and should be reduced; 2) too small and should be expanded; 3) about the right size; and 4) Not sure.”
The responses were nearly evenly split in quarters, with “too large and should be reduced” (26%) slightly edging out “too small and should be expanded” (25%) and “about the right size” (24%). The final answer, “not sure,” was tied for the lead at 26%.
The margin of error for the poll is +/-2.7 percentage points, so the results are really a dead heat between all four questions.
But it’s no dead heat when it comes to political ideology. None of the 36 demographic groups tracked each month by the I&I/TIPP Poll registered even close to a majority saying the federal workforce is too large and should be shrunk.
The clearest difference was by the self-described ideology of those answering the poll.
Among those calling themselves conservative, 43% called government employment too large and wanted it to shrink, while 18% said it’s too small and should be expanded. Another 22% said it was about the right size.
Self-described liberals (15% shrink government workforce, 32% expand the government workforce, and 24% “right size”) felt almost exactly the opposite.
Meanwhile, moderates (20% shrink government workforce, 27% expand the government workforce, and 28% “right size”) straddled the two right-left ideologies, as is often the case.
In a second, more policy-specific question, I&I/TIPP asked: “Do you support or oppose President Trump’s Deferred Resignation Program, under which more than 150,000 federal workers are leaving their jobs to cut government costs?”
The result was essentially dead even: 42% said they either supported the program “strongly” (22%) or “somewhat” (21%), while 42% said they opposed it either “somewhat” (14%) or “strongly” (28%). Another 15% said they weren’t sure.
Again, overall, there is no majority support for government job cuts, even if those who leave do so voluntarily and receive both their pay and benefits for months after they resign.
Political affiliation is another matter. A solid 70% of Republicans support the idea, while just 17% oppose it. But among Democrats, only 20% support it, while 69% oppose it. For independents, the numbers were 35% support, 48% oppose.
There are other similar schisms within various demographic groups.
Men, for instance, support the program 51% to 38%, while women oppose it 46% to 34%. White voters (46% support, 38% oppose) and black/Hispanic voters (34% support, 53% oppose) are also apart. Among the four major age groupings, only those 25 to 44 years of age, the prime working years, supported the idea (49% support, 37% oppose).
A final question in the I&I/TIPP Poll asked: “What do you think will happen to government services (such as transportation, health, and safety programs) as a result of these mass resignations and layoffs?”
The answer: A slim majority of 51% said “services will get worse/less effective,” while only 22% said that “services will improve/become more efficient,” and 15% agreed “services will stay about the same.”
But it once again is a tale of two Americas when it comes to political affiliation. Only 12% of Democrats think services will improve, while 71% say they’ll get worse, and only 7% expect them to stay the same. Independents aren’t much different: A majority (59%) believes services will worsen, while just 16% say they’ll get better, and 14% expect them to be the same.
Republicans? Among the pachyderm party, a plurality of 38% say services will get better, but 26% say they’ll get worse. Another 22% say there’ll be no change, for a total of 60% expecting no difference or an actual improvement in services.
Will the federal job cuts be made? They’re already happening, in large part due to the Democrats’ near-record shutdown of parts of the federal government. When it’s all done, the White House expects not just a cut of 100,000 federal workers, which was largely done in September, but a 275,000 reduction, as bloated bureaucracies get slimmed down.
While the cuts cost about $15 billion, they will ultimately save the U.S. $28 billion a year, according to a White House spokesman.
When Trump entered office in January, the federal workforce (not counting defense and other necessary workers) totaled just over 3 million. By the end of August, it was down to about 2.9 million. And it continues to fall.
“This didn’t happen by accident,” PJ Media noted. “The Trump administration executed a deliberate strategy to cut spending; eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse; and push the federal workforce closer to an at-will employment model more typical of the private sector. It’s a bold move that challenges entrenched bureaucracy and signals a new era of accountability in Washington.”
As I&I/TIPP’s results show, Americans are sympathetic about federal workers losing jobs. But at the same time, they’ve lost faith in federal agencies – indeed, even as Americans worry about federal workers, a recent Gallup Poll reveals that confidence in major federal agencies is at an all-time low.
I&I/TIPP publishes timely, unique, and informative data each month on topics of public interest. TIPP’s reputation for polling excellence comes from being the most accurate pollster for the past six presidential elections.
Terry Jones is an editor of Issues & Insights. His four decades of journalism experience include serving as national issues editor, economics editor, and editorial page editor for Investor’s Business Daily.
The question was: “Will Americans really notice a 9% reduction in the Federal work force?”
My answer is: It depends on where the 9% reduction occurs. If it’s in the 30 percent who aren’t doing anything in the first place (other than drawing a salary for the job they aren’t doing) the answer is “Not right away.” They’re mostly non-productive as it is…it’s unlikely we’ll notice the loss of service already not being provided. The long-range benefit will be to the national economy as parasitical drones now have to seek real jobs in the private sector. That’ll take at least another year. By then we should be seeing the effects of a reduction in the federal payroll & the shuttering of federal agencies, termination of leases on now-unneeded rental space, and lavish benefits programs. Much of what the federal work force does would already be contracted out to the private sector (for a much lower price, BTW) if it weren’t for civil service unions (AFGE, anyone?) and Congress-critters who want to keep a mostly Democrat-voting federal work force happy. Once we’re over these bumps, we’ll notice a significant change for the better.
Yes. I wonder how many government workers were involved with this poll. I remember providing a solution having to do with a government planning process that reduced the timeline from 30 days to 1 day. They agreed the new process would work, but they couldn’t implement it because it would impact over 2,000 jobs. (And, oh yes, I couldn’t work on that project anymore.)
In all these polls, it would be useful to include a question on what news is regularly consumed – say the person’s top 3 news providers. I am willing to bet there would be a far stronger correlation with the news consumed than political party.
Most people don’t know the federal workforce is 3 million, almost all of which is unionized. Media rarely covers the union featherbed jobs bloat because the media is union also.
Knowing that the entire MSM is bought and paid for, nothing but propaganda, please consider this. The MSM is a multi billion dollar industry, as is the entertainment industry, and they are peddling propaganda too. The polling industry is a flea compared to these others, and you would have to be a naive fool to believe they are not similarly compromised and peddling propaganda. There’s a reason candidates spend critical campaign dollars for internal polling, they know the polls are all liars.
Our polls are entirely transparent (apart from names, of course; all legitimate polls are done anonymously). We receive no money for the questions we ask, and they are absolutely clear in their subject matter (though you might not like how some are worded, which is a separate issue). No one tells us what to ask, nor pays us for it, apart from the revenue we get that is generated from pageviews to our website. On your other point, candidates don’t do broad polling of the public, generally speaking, as we do. Instead, they do targeted polling of specific groups that they worry about, mainly to find out how they can better target them. That’s entirely different from a general, national online poll with a margin of error of +/- 2.7 percentage points. Are we biased? Our pollster, Raghavan Mayur of TIPP, has been the overall most accurate pollster in presidential elections going back to 2000. We don’t tinker with the numbers, apart from making sure they reflect the population as a whole.
Cheers and thanks for the note.