Tracking President Joe Biden’s Cabinet and appointees

One of the president’s most significant constitutional powers is the ability to staff the top tiers of the executive branch with the advice and consent of the Senate. In an effort to evaluate the Biden administration over the course of its first year, Brookings monitored the Senate confirmations process in two ways: first by tracking key demographic data of these individuals through the first 300 days, second by tracking the pace of confirmations in major departments at the 100-, 200-, and 300-day marks. This information is placed in context by comparing it to Biden’s three predecessors: Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

• View data on the diversity of recent presidential administrations, by gender and race/ethnicity
• View data on the pace of confirmations for recent presidential administrations, in aggregate and by agency

Note that the data on this page only includes confirmations to the 15 departments in the line of presidential succession; this excludes U.S. attorneys, among others. View a list of Senate-confirmed personnel included in this tracker here. Further notes and disclaimers on the dataset is available here. For a more detailed breakdown of this information, please contact Kathryn Dunn Tenpas.

Diversity of Senate confirmations

This section displays information on Senate-confirmed appointees by presidential administration according to two key demographic factors: The first chart displays gender (via frequency of women appointees), the second displays race/ethnicity. The data runs through the first 300 days of each administration. See full notes on the data here.

Pace of Senate confirmations

This section displays the frequency of Senate-confirmed appointees at the 100-, 200-, and 300-day marks within the first year of a presidency. The first figure aggregates these confirmations across the 15 departments in the line of presidential succession; below that is an agency-level breakdown in alphabetical order.

Pace of Senate confirmations

This section displays the frequency of Senate-confirmed appointees at the 100-, 200-, and 300-day marks within the first year of a presidency. The first figure aggregates these confirmations across the 15 departments in the line of presidential succession; below that is an agency-level breakdown in alphabetical order.

Pace of Senate confirmations by agency

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List of Senate confirmations

This section displays a list of Senate-confirmed individuals that are included in this tracker; they are listed in chronological order based on date of confirmation. The data on this page only includes confirmations to the 15 departments in the line of presidential succession; this excludes U.S. attorneys, among others.

Senate-confirmed appointees, days 1-100

Senate-confirmed appointees, days 101-200

Senate-confirmed appointees, days 201-300

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Notes

• Although newly inaugurated presidents are presented with the opportunity to fill roughly 1,200 Senate-confirmed positions across the federal government, the data on this page only includes confirmations within the 15 departments in the line of presidential succession. This includes the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs. This excludes military and judicial confirmations, individuals being confirmed for seats on commissions, and U.S. attorneys, among others.
• For the purposes of this tracker, Joe Biden’s first 100 days end on April 30, 2021; days 101-200 end on Aug. 9, 2021; and days 201-300 end on Nov. 17, 2021.
• * For the race/ethnicity data, U.S. Census categories were used. Due to insufficient information, the race/ethnicity of a small number of individuals could not be determined; these were classified as “Unknown.” For individuals with more than one race/ethnicity, each is reflected in the data; i.e., a single person could be listed in both the “Black” and “Hispanic/Latino” categories. A person with “origins in … the Middle East or North Africa [MENA]” is categorized as white in data about race and ethnicity released by the Census Bureau; there is no specific census classification available for people of MENA descent.
• Special thanks to Noah Montemarano and Kevin Han for research assistance.

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