As of the end of 2017, there were over 2 million bureaucrats who directly work for the U.S. government.

That amazing number doesn’t include the 503,103 people who work for the U.S. Postal Service or any of the 1.3 million active duty members of the U.S. military services or the nation’s 800,000 reservists. Nor does it include any of the 5.3 million people who effectively work for the U.S. government “off the books”. If we include all these individuals, the total number of people who are paid to do the U.S. government’s bidding rises to nearly 10 million!

The following chart provides a visual breakdown of the various major departments and agencies where the 2,108,160 bureaucrats who work directly for the U.S. government toil:

Here are the employment numbers that go with each major department or agency, ranked from the department with the most civilian employees to the least:

• Department of Defense: 733,880
• Department of Veterans Affairs: 383,172
• Department of Homeland Security: 202,559
• Department of Justice: 115,407
• Department of the Treasury: 87,168
• Department of Health & Human Services: 84,506
• Department of Agriculture: 84,392
• Social Security Administration: 62,777
• Department of the Interior: 62,233
• Department of Transportation: 54,734
• Department of Commerce: 47,340
• Environmental Protection Agency: 14,966
• Department of Labor: 14,833
• Department of Energy: 14,677
• Department of State: 12,099
• Department of Housing & Urban Development: 7,798
• Department of Education: 4,023

But wait, that’s not all! There are an additional 105 other U.S. government agencies that collectively have 94,596 people on their payrolls, which if they were all grouped into one bureaucratic entity, would make up the fifth largest U.S. government department.