From business exports to veteran care − here’s what some of the 35,000 federal workers in the Philadelphia region do

Todd Aagaard, Villanova School of Law, The Conversation on Apr 3, 2025

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Layoffs of federal employees and cutbacks to federal agencies have direct consequences for the Philadelphia area.

I am a law professor at Villanova University outside Philadelphia, and my research focuses on the work of the administrative agencies that compose the federal government.

I believe that understanding the federal government’s presence in the Philly metro area can highlight some of the potential consequences in our region for the rapid changes currently underway.

More than 80% of federal civilian employees work outside of the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. There are about 66,000 federal employees in Pennsylvania and 35,000 in Philadelphia.

Over a dozen federal agencies have offices in the Philadelphia region. These include the Internal Revenue Service, Army Corps of Engineers, Agricultural Marketing Service, Food and Drug Administration, Economic Development Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, Federal Transit Administration and the Census Bureau.

Here are some examples of the broad variety of services that federal employees in the Philadelphia region provide to the public.

Several federal agencies in the Philadelphia area provide expertise, advice and resources for businesses.

For example, the U.S. Commercial Service, part of the Commerce Department, has an office in Philadelphia and assists U.S. businesses with exporting their products for international markets.

The Small Business Administration, which has a district office in King of Prussia, provides resources and support for small businesses.

And the Economic Development Administration operates a regional office in Philadelphia that distributes federal funds for construction, workforce training, manufacturing, disaster relief and other purposes.

Other federal agencies administer government benefits programs. The Social Security Administration disburses benefits for retirees and the disabled, providing more than US$13 billion in benefits to almost 8 million people in the Philadelphia region each month.

About 3,800 Pennsylvanians work for the Social Security Administration in offices located around the state.

The Department of Veterans Affairs operates the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz Medical Center in West Philadelphia. The center provides primary and specialty health care for veterans.

Statewide in Pennsylvania, about 17,000 federal employees work for the Veterans Health Administration. Another 1,500 work for the Veterans Benefits Administration, which provides veterans with education and training, home loans, life insurance and pensions.

The Census Bureau operates an office in Philadelphia to collect and disseminate data in a region that stretches from Tennessee to Pennsylvania.

The Census Bureau conducts the constitutionally mandated census of the U.S. population every 10 years, as well as an economic census of businesses every five years, and numerous surveys about communities, health, housing, crime, education and more.

In addition, regional census employees answer questions from local media, work with local organizations to encourage participation in censuses and surveys, and educate the public about census data. This work is of particular importance because census data determines how federal funding is allocated.

The Defense Logistics Agency’s Troop Support Command is headquartered in Northeast Philadelphia. Troop Support is responsible for creating and maintaining military supply chains. This includes securing food, clothing, equipment and medical supplies.

It is also responsible for procuring medals and ribbons for military awards, such as the Medal of Honor.

About 5,000 federal employees, many of them military veterans, work for the Defense Logistics Agency in Pennsylvania.

The Army Corps of Engineers has operated its district headquarters in Philadelphia since 1866.

In addition to its role in supporting the military, the Corps of Engineers also constructs and maintains civil works projects. Its first civil works project in the Philadelphia region was the construction of a breakwater near Cape Henlopen, Delaware, in 1829.

These days, employees of the district inspect and maintain bridges, operate flood control dams, build beachfill and seawall projects along coastlines and maintain 500 miles of navigation channels.

The National Park Service manages numerous historical sites and parks in the Philadelphia region, including the Independence National Historical Park, Valley Forge National Historical Park, Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site, the Flight 93 National Memorial and the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.

At these locations, National Park Service personnel educate visitors, maintain facilities, protect park resources and keep the public safe.

The Environmental Protection Agency is perhaps best known as an environmental regulator, enforcing limits on air and water pollution and toxic substances. But it also is active in other areas, such as cleaning up contaminated sites in the Philadelphia area through the Superfund program.

EPA’s National Priorities List includes almost 40 contaminated sites in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties. For example, EPA manages the cleanup of the Philadelphia Navy Yard in South Philadelphia, where part of the Navy Yard had historically been used to dispose of waste from ships. EPA’s cleanup has remediated the onsite landfill and prevents contamination from seeping into the Delaware River.

EPA also supervises the cleanup in Havertown of the site of a former wood treatment operation that contaminated the soil and groundwater with the highly toxic chemical pentachlorophenol, or PCP. Because of the cleanup, part of the contaminated site is now a widely used YMCA that serves the recreational and fitness needs of the community.

The Internal Revenue Service, another agency known for its enforcement activities, also provides services in the Philadelphia area to support taxpayers. These include, for example, taxpayer assistance centers in Horsham, King of Prussia, Media and Philadelphia.

The IRS also has a Taxpayer Advocate Service office in Philadelphia. The Taxpayer Advocate Service is an independent office that advocates for taxpayers who are having difficulties with the IRS.

Read more of our stories about Philadelphia and Pennsylvania.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Todd Aagaard, Villanova School of Law

Todd Aagaard is a visiting fellow at Resources for the Future in addition to his faculty position at Villanova University. From 1999 to 2007, he served as an attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice.