Trump is staffing up agencies with political appointees. They’re not sticking around, new analysis finds

While Trump officials are installing a historically high number of political appointees in the federal government, those individuals are leaving their positions at higher rates than other recent presidential administrations, according to an analysis published Wednesday. 

“The turnover among non-Senate-confirmed appointees stands out across every measure — in its scale, in its spread across agencies and in the speed with which appointees have left,” wrote Chris Piper, a researcher for the Partnership for Public Service nonprofit, which has been critical of the Trump administration’s cuts to the civil service. 

During the first 18 months of Trump’s second term, more than 930 non-career members of the Senior Executive Service and Schedule C political appointees have left the federal government. That’s higher than the number who departed within the same timeframe under the presidencies of Barack Obama (426), Trump’s first term (592) and Joe Biden (432). 

In response, the administration has brought on a higher-than-usual number of new appointees, according to the Partnership. Trump since January has made roughly 160 non-Senate-confirmed appointments per month compared with an average of about 70 under Obama, Trump’s first term and Biden during the same period. 

As a percentage, nearly a quarter (24.6%) of the political appointees who were hired during the first 18 months of Trump’s second term have exited government, which is a higher rate than at the same point during the Obama (20.4%) and Biden (18.4%) administrations but lower than the share during Trump’s first term (28.3%). 

“High turnover among political appointees is not an anomaly of the second Trump administration so much as a pattern across both of his terms,” Piper wrote. 

Researchers wrote that the “steepest” losses have occurred at the Homeland Security Department, where 97 non-Senate-confirmed appointees have departed. DHS, which has received billions in additional dollars for immigration enforcement, also experienced turnover at the very top with Secretary Markwayne Mullin in the spring replacing Kristi Noem. 

Additionally, the Partnership found that nearly 45% of the departing political appointees served for less than a year, and more than a quarter stayed with the government for six months or less. The researchers noted, however, that the percentages are likely higher because the Office of Personnel Management doesn’t record how long a political appointee stays in a given role but rather their total amount of time in government, which can include work under a different administration. 

“The share who served less than a year, and less than six months, include…appointees who came in with prior federal service. Their recorded totals reflect earlier government work on top of their time in this administration,” Piper wrote. “Strip that earlier service out and the share of appointees who spent less than a year, or less than six months, in the second Trump administration would be higher still.”

In July, the Partnership similarly found that Senate-confirmed officials in the second Trump administration were leaving their positions at record rates. The nonprofit also reported in the spring that, under the current president, the federal political appointee workforce was at its largest size in decades while the number of career employees in the Senior Executive Service, the highest-ranking career staffers, had decreased by 30%.  

The organization warned that high turnover among political appointees paired with fewer senior career leaders could make it more difficult for agencies to operate effectively. 

“The second Trump administration has pushed a familiar pattern to a new high, losing more of these appointees, and losing them faster, than any recent president,” Piper wrote. “When churn at that level meets a career leadership already thinned by heavy attrition, agencies have less continuity to fall back on.”