FACT SHEET: 100 Days In, Biden-Harris Administration Makes History with Presidential Appointees
Today, the White House Office of Presidential Personnel is releasing new data about the historic number and diversity of presidential appointees hired by Day 100 of the Biden-Harris Administration.
The Biden-Harris Administration put in place its Statutory Cabinet faster than any other Administration since President Reagan. President Biden has also announced his intent to nominate 233 individuals to serve in Senate-confirmed leadership roles across the Executive Branch – more nominees than any past administration has announced by the 100-day mark.
Many of these Administration leaders have broken new ground. Lloyd Austin is the first Black Secretary of Defense. Janet Yellen is the first woman to be Secretary of the Treasury. Alejandro Mayorkas is the first Latino and immigrant to serve as Secretary of Homeland Security. Xavier Becerra is the first Latino to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Deb Haaland, the Secretary of the Interior, is the first Native American to ever serve as a Cabinet Secretary. Pete Buttigieg is the first openly LGBTQ person to serve in the Cabinet. Cecilia Rouse is the first woman of color to chair the Council of Economic Advisors and Katherine Tai is the first woman of color to serve as U.S. Trade Representative. Avril Haines is the first woman to lead the U.S. intelligence community. Rachel Levine is the first openly transgender person to be confirmed by the Senate. If confirmed, Robert Santos will be the first person of color to be Director of the United States Census Bureau and Stacey Dixon will be the highest-ranking Black woman in the intelligence community.
Even as the Senate continues to confirm the President’s highly qualified nominees, the White House Office of Presidential Personnel has hired nearly 1,500 presidential appointees to serve in key agency positions that do not require Senate confirmation – double the number of appointees hired by any prior administration by the 100-day mark. And, consistent with President Biden’s commitment to leveraging the talent, creativity, and expertise of the American people to build an Administration that looks like America, more than half of all Biden appointees are women, and half identify as non-white – numbers that set a new bar for future Administrations.
Of the approximately 1,500 agency appointees hired by President Biden so far:
- 58% are women
- 18% identify as Black or African American
- 15% identify as Latino or Hispanic
- 15% identify as Asian American or Pacific Islander
- 3% identify as Middle Eastern or North African
- 2% identify as American Indian or Alaska Native
- 14% identify as LGBTQ+
- 4% are veterans
- 3% identify as disabled or having a disability
- 15% were the first in their families to go to college
- 32% are naturalized citizens or the children of immigrants
President Biden’s commitment to representation from communities that haven’t always been at the table can be seen across the federal government. At the U.S. Department of Labor – the agency on the frontlines of the crisis facing women in the workforce across the country – nearly 70 percent of all appointees are women. At the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, nearly 40 percent of all appointees are first-generation. At the U.S. Department of Education, 1 in 4 of all appointees are the first in their family to graduate from college and 1 in 3 are former educators. And at the U.S Department of Interior, 1 in 5 of all appointees are American Indian or Alaska Natives.
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