Thickening Government

 Paul Light at Brookings:

According to the online phonebooks published by Leadership Connect in 2020, Biden took control of 83 layers of presidential appointees and 5,000 jobs on Inauguration Day. Biden also inherited hundreds of lower-level “title-riders” who thicken the hierarchy with second titles such as “associate deputy assistant secretary,” “assistant deputy undersecretary,” “deputy associate assistant commissioner,” “associate principal deputy assistant secretary,” “deputy chief of staff,” and “assistant deputy chiefs of staff.” As Chart 5 shows, Biden inherited a government that has never had more layers of leaders nor more leaders per layer confirming Trump’s complaint that there were so many appointees in government that “it’s just people over people over people.”