Which federal agencies have the most excepted employees required to work during a shutdown?

1. What the competing claims actually say — extracting the headline assertions

Reporting from multiple outlets and government summaries asserts a common core claim: the Department of Defense and health and safety agencies shoulder most excepted workers during shutdowns, with the VA, DHS components, TSA, and agencies operating critical infrastructure repeatedly named ^{[1] [3]}. Some sources quantify the workforce broadly — one analysis cites about 730,000 continuing to work and 670,000 furloughed, another cites roughly 600,000 labeled excepted by the Congressional Budget Office, while departmental breakdowns (e.g., DOJ and VA percentages) offer different emphases, like the Justice Department having a high proportion of excepted staff in one dataset ^{[1] [4] [5]}. Those are the key claims: which agencies, approximate magnitudes, and which job categories are excepted. ^{[1] [5]}

2. Putting numbers side-by-side — why totals diverge across sources

Differences in totals stem from methodological choices: some tallies aggregate military personnel, others include only civilian employees, some count all staff continuing to work (excepted) while others report furlough counts or percentages within agencies. For example, a November snapshot reported about 730,000 working without pay and 670,000 furloughed, while a CBO account cited roughly 600,000 excepted staff; a department-level report lists DOJ with over 100,000 excepted employees and the VA with nearly universal continuation for clinical staff ^{[1] [4] [5]}. These variances reflect whether sources include active-duty military, whether “excepted” is equated with “working without pay,” and whether agency mission-critical contractors or schedule-based excepted positions are counted ^{[6] [7]}.

3. Which agencies repeatedly appear near the top — a cross-source synthesis

Across reporting, the Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Homeland Security (including TSA, CBP, Coast Guard), Department of Health and Human Services, DOJ components (prisons, law enforcement), and transportation safety agencies recur as bearing the largest excepted workforces because their functions are legally and operationally tied to protecting life and property ^{[2] [3] [1]}. Agriculture and Interior appear when food safety inspections and park operations are discussed, but their excepted counts are smaller or more variable. The consistent signal: agencies tied to national security, public health, and direct life-safety operations hold the bulk of excepted employees across shutdown scenarios ^{[8] [1]}.

4. Where reporting may overreach or omit important context

Some accounts present large headline numbers without clarifying included categories — for instance, citing “2 million military personnel” as part of an agency total can conflate active-duty force size with civilian excepted employees, producing inflated perceptions of excepted non-military staffing; similarly, agency percentages (e.g., “97% of VA staff”) often reflect mission-critical clinical roles but do not show the distribution across functions or long-term consequences for non-excepted workers ^{[2] [5]}. Analyses also vary in timeliness: datasets from 2023 or 2024 capture different baselines versus immediate shutdown reporting in late 2025, so direct comparisons can mislead unless the reporting date is explicit ^{[6] [8]}.

5. Consequences and missing considerations decisionmakers and the public should know

Beyond counting staff, the crucial policy effects are operational continuity, worker pay disruptions, and collateral service slowdowns: excepted workers often continue without pay initially, affecting morale and retention; meanwhile, partial shutdowns compound backlogs in services like passport processing or food safety, and may shift risk to contractors or state systems ^{[1] [3]}. Reporting seldom quantifies downstream economic costs, legal nuances about retroactive pay, or differentiated impacts across frontline clinical, law enforcement, and technical roles. Understanding which agency functions — not just headcounts — are sustained or curtailed is essential for grasping real-world effects of excepted staffing ^{[4] [8]}.

6. Bottom line and where to look next for precise counts

The evidence is consistent that defense, veterans’ health, homeland security, public health, and justice/transportation safety agencies have the most excepted workers required to work during shutdowns, but exact totals vary by source and accounting rules ^{[1] [5] [2]}. For the most precise and current breakdowns, consult contemporaneous CBO and OPM or agency contingency-plan disclosures and departmental workforce reports; these sources clarify definitions and timing and reduce the risk of conflating military versus civilian headcounts ^{[4] [6]}. Policymakers and the public should scrutinize definitions and dates before comparing headline totals.