Donald Trump says he’s all about jobs, but at the same time he wants a federal hiring freeze. Supposedly there are just too many federal workers and the government should save money by getting rid of them. Here’s the reality:

• There were an average of 2.8 million federal employees in 2016, representing only 1.9 percent of the nation’s 144 million civilian[2] jobs. This share ties with 2015 for the lowest federal share ever recorded, with data going back to 1939, and it’s far below its post-World War II average of 3.3 percent. (See Figure 1.)
• The number of federal jobs rose by just 18,000 (0.6 percent) over the last eight years; in contrast, the number of jobs in the country grew by 11.3 million (8.3 percent) during the same period.[3]
• The number of federal jobs as a share of the nation’s population in 2016 was tied with 2014 and 2015 for its lowest share on record.

Not to mention, these federal jobs include little things like the Centers for Disease Control, Medicare, national parks, food inspection, and other services and protections that many of us kinda like. “Freeze federal hiring” is something that sounds good to some people if you strip it of the specifics so they don’t think about what exactly is being cut. If Trump followed through with the kind of big cuts he’s implying, chances are it would not be a popular move.