The impact of presidential elections on workplace satisfaction in the U.S. federal agencies: A longitudinal study (2004–2019)

Abstract

While job satisfaction has been widely studied by public management scholars, little research has examined the impact of external political events on the federal workforce, and specifically how presidential elections might affect satisfaction over time. Using Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey data spanning sixteen years (2004–2019) and three U.S. presidential administrations (Bush, Obama, and Trump), we employ hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to investigate how presidential elections affect workplace satisfaction at the agency level. We find that workplace satisfaction does shift in response to presidential elections, decreasing during the first terms while increasing in the second terms. We further find workplace satisfaction is largely unaffected by federal agency’s ideological alignment with the President’s party. These findings suggest that neutral competence endures among civil servants over time and points to the federal bureaucracy’s resilience in the face of ongoing political change.