The public’s opinion of civil servants continues to climb

Americans’ views of the federal workforce are becoming increasingly positive, alongside growing public support for a nonpartisan civil service.

New research from the Partnership for Public Service found that close to two-thirds, or 65%, of Americans believe civil servants are competent, up from 57% last year. And about 61% of Americans now agree that civil servants are “committed to helping people like me,” an increase of five percentage points since last year’s findings.

“What appears to be clear is that attacks from the Trump administration on the civil service are not harming people’s views of the civil service, and may actually be backfiring,” Paul Hitlin, senior research manager at the Partnership for Public Service, said in an interview with Federal News Network. “People may actually be learning more about what civil servants do. It’s possible that people are learning more about what these various agencies and departments do when they get cut. That may contribute to what the public understands about the federal workforce.”

Research from the Partnership for Public Service, an organization that advocates for government improvements, shows positive views of civil servants have risen each year for the last several years. The polling results marked the highest positive responses since the nonprofit started measuring public views of civil servants in 2021. Since then, public agreement that civil servants are committed workers has increased by 15 percentage points.

Notably, Republicans’ views on whether civil servants are committed increased by 11 percentage points in one year, going from 52% in 2025 to 63% in 2026.

The findings come from a nationally representative poll of 1,000 U.S. adults, conducted in March and April 2026, with a 3.1% margin of error.

The research findings showed that public opinion on the importance of a nonpartisan civil service also strengthened after a significant drop in 2025. This year, 76% of Americans said a nonpartisan civil service is important for democracy — up 10 percentage points from last year.

“The increase occurred across the political spectrum, even among Republicans who went from 66% agreement last year to 78% agreement this year,” the Partnership said.

“Seventy-six percent is pretty high from any point of view, anyway you look at it,” Hitlin said. “There’s pretty widespread agreement that a nonpartisan civil service is important.”

But the 2026 results are still lower than 2024, when 87% of Americans agreed it was important to have a nonpartisan civil service.

“A lot of people may have few preconceived notions about what it means to work for the government or what the government does,” Hitlin said. “There’s an opening there for people to communicate and explain why the work the federal workforce does is really important to helping the American people.”

The nonprofit’s polling also collected information on why proponents of the Trump administration’s changes to government were supportive of the efforts. The top responses were to make government more efficient (55%) and to cut government spending (45%). Just 8% were supportive due to wanting to give the president more control over who works for the federal government.

“The effort to change the civil service into something potentially more political doesn’t seem to be the reason why people who are supporting the efforts are in favor,” Hitlin said.

Fewer Americans also now say that presidents should have authority to fill any federal job with employees who agree with an administration’s policies. About 53% of respondents disagreed, an increase of 6 percentage points since 2025.

The Trump administration earlier this month finalized Schedule Policy/Career – a new employment classification that stripped civil service protections from nearly 8,000 career federal employees, effectively making it easier for agencies to fire those employees at-will.

Administration officials have emphasized that federal employees may still hold whatever personal political views they’d like, but that those views should not interfere with their ability to carry out the president’s policy priorities.

Opponents of Schedule Policy/Career, however, said the reclassifications will likely lead to a politicized and less experienced career federal workforce.

The Partnership’s research also considered public opinion of the Trump administration’s cuts to government and the federal workforce. A majority of Americans, 52%, said the administration has not made the government more efficient. A majority, 51%, said the government cuts have made their lives or communities worse. And one-third of Americans said they or someone they know experienced impacts of the cuts firsthand.

“These are very similar numbers to what we saw last year in 2025 — there’s been consistent opposition to the changes being made by the administration,” Hitlin said. “It does not seem to suggest that the administration has won over the public in thinking that DOGE and other efforts have succeeded in cutting waste. While there are partisan differences, it appears that in many ways the Trump administration is out of step with the country in terms of what the public wants from their federal government.”

If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email drew.friedman@federalnewsnetwork.com or reach out on Signal at drewfriedman.11

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