How Vulnerable Is Wisconsin to Federal Firings?

Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s war against the federal government is likely to have an increasingly negative effect on Wisconsin residents. So far, the negative effects of DOGE on Wisconsin is largely limited to the firings of people working in the federal government. However, as DOGE digs in, it is likely to negatively affect Wisconsinites who have to deal with the government, such as folks who want to know why a tax deduction was disallowed or why Medicare rejected a medical treatment.

The graph below shows the number of people (in thousands) working for one of the three levels of government in Wisconsin. These data span the period from 1990 to 2024 (or 2023 in the case of federal and state jobs).

Much the largest number of employees work for local governments, shown in blue in the graph. This is followed by state employees, shown in green, and federal employees, in yellow. The dashed black line shows the total number of government employees in the three levels of government. (These numbers come from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.)

Throughout this period the number of federal jobs in Wisconsin has stayed right around 30,000 or about one percent of federal jobs nationwide. Currently, Wisconsin has about 96,000 state employees and 277,000 at the local level, for a total just over 400,000 at the three levels.

The chart below shows a portion of the federal government’s job postings for Wisconsin taken a few days ago. It shows ten of the 88 jobs that were listed at the time. This underlines the continual need for new hires, with a variety of skill sets, to replace employees who retire or leave for another job.

After the meltdown of the federal government’s computer, following the introduction of Obamacare, two small groups called 18F and the US Digital Service were established to upgrade the government’s technical expertise. 

On February 14, 2025, several dozen employees who were part of the United States Digital Service were dismissed with an email saying “Due to the restructuring and changes to USDS’s mission, USDS no longer has a need for your services. On February 25, 21 of the remaining 65 employees resigned with a joint resignation letter that stated “We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services.”

All 18F employees were fired as part of the ongoing Reductions in Force. The US Digital Service is now the US DOGE Service. It also has seen about 40 people laid off, and 21 employees resigned last week, leaving around 40 experienced employees left.

There have been a number of articles in the local press on job losses in Wisconsin:

• An account of confusion among Zablocki Veterans Hospital employees as to how to respond to a Musk edict demanding that they submit a list of five key accomplishments from the last week. Musk added that not submitting the list would be taken as a resignation.
• Firing of Wisconsin-based federal workers with the US Forest Service and National Park Service.
• A concern among Wildlife scientists  that DOGE will require federal job cuts to U.S. Geological Survey wildlife health and co-op programs in Wisconsin. Eight hundred federal workers were fired at NOAA, which impacts weather forecasts and Great Lakes science.
• A sponsorship program for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela with American sponsors was abruptly dismantled by the Trump administration, leaving the participants with no legal options. They came to the U.S. legally. Trump has put their future in jeopardy. 
• Summer tourism at Lake Superior’s Apostle Islands is threatened by federal workforce cuts, tourism boards warn. 

Tom Tiffany represents the northwest part of Wisconsin, including the Apostle Islands, in the US Congress. His website has no mention of the challenge facing his district. What it does have is the following claim: “After four years of weak leadership and skyrocketing costs, America is already stronger, safer, and more prosperous.” He offers no evidence of this claim.

DOGE has established a number of web sites. Clicking on one of them, the DOGE live tracker brings up $55.03 Billion in very large lettering as the “tax dollars saved.” Scattered about the web site are “Source: @DOGE on X” and “99 initiatives.” Clicking on the green button on the upper right side of the site gives one a new number for the tax dollars saved: $105.00 Billion with “Source: doge.gov/savings” and “2,754 initiatives.” 

As with the rest of DOGE pronouncements, the message is unclear. For instance, does “initiatives” mean the number of people fired or number of orders to fire groups of people? No one knows the number of federal employees fired, much less the number by state, or how many more will be fired. 

Among some on the right there is a strongly held view that government and its workforce has been steadily growing. In fact, just the opposite has been occurring. This is particularly true of the federal government. The graph below shows the number of government employees per 1,000 US residents. Between 1959 and 2024, the number of federal employees has dropped from 13 per 1,000 residents to nine per 1,000.

So far, DOGE’s impact on most Wisconsinites has been limited by the relatively small number of federal employees—about 30,000 —living in the state. Compare this to the number of federal employees living in and around the nation’s capital: 191,000 in the District of Columbia, 162,000 in Maryland and 192,000 in Virginia.

But the massive cuts in federal funding that are supposed to occur under the House budget bill would likely lead to significant cuts in funding that Wisconsin’s state budget depends on: 28% of Wisconsin’s budget comes from federal funds. Big cuts in this would likely lead to cuts in the number of state employees.

The loss of skilled workers throughout the nation is likely to affect anyone who deals with the government. For example, people with questions about their taxes, about why a medical procedure was rejected by Medicare, or when to apply for Social Security are likely to face longer wait times and receive less accurate information. Those are just a few examples of what is likely to occur at a long list of government agencies.