Nearly 1 in 5 Secret Service staffers left the agency in 2022 and 2023, leaving it “unprepared” for a year in which a former president would face two assassination attempts, the New York Times reports, noting “even agents willing to take a bullet for the president were often unwilling to tolerate life at the agency that protects him.” At least 1,400 of 7,800 employees jumped ship in “the largest outflow from the agency in at least two decades,” with reasons for the “exodus” blamed on punishing overtime, which resulted in no additional pay after a certain point; perceptions of favoritism; dilapidated facilities; and a poorly conceived retiree program that pushed many agents into retirement “so they could be paid a salary and a pension at once,” per the outlet.
In July 2023, then-director Kimberly Cheatle described the critical need to retain employees in an agencywide email. Yet resignations kept coming. The Secret Service had then been seeing “overwork causing departures, causing more overwork” for at least 10 years, per the Times. In a recent survey, 68 of 153 agents said they hit the pay cap for protective details ($221,145 in 2024), with some missing