After my blogpost yesterday about Department of Veterans Affairs spending, my research assistant Nick created the chart below on the number of VA employees. Wow, you don’t often see bureaucracies expand that rapidly! A 56 percent increase in just 13 years, from 219,000 to 341,000 employees. The VA has 100,000 new employees just since 2006.

The data is from this OPM website, which also provides a breakdown for agencies within departments. About 90 percent of VA employees are in the Veterans Health Administration, which is currently in the news for its horrendous mismanagement.