The Secret Service is offering significant bonuses as it races to fill recruitment gaps ahead of major events in 2028 and following recent high-profile incidents of political violence that have heightened concerns about the agency’s staffing shortage.
Armed Secret Service agents stand on stage during a shooting incident at the annual White House Correspondents Association Dinner at the Washington Hilton on April 25, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
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The Secret Services is offering $40,000 recruitment incentives for special agents in dozens of states, according to job advertisements, $75,000 incentives for Secret Service police and special operations and $60,000 incentives for special agents on its counter assault team, which provides tactical support to the Presidential Protective Division.
The agency is “urgently hiring” for special agents on its Hazardous Agent Mitigation and Medical Emergency Response team, which responds to “a hazardous, toxic, or lethal environment to locate, extract, decontaminate, and provide life-saving medical interventions for Secret Service protectees,” according to a job advertisement.
It aims to create 852 new positions in fiscal year 2027, including 520 special agents, according to the Secret Service’s annual budget request, part of an effort to hire 4,000 new employees by 2028, a 20% increase in staff that would bring the agency up to 10,000 total employees, multiple outlets reported earlier this year.
The agency said it has hired 824 trainees in the first seven months of fiscal year 2026, compared to 786 in all of 2025, and is on track to hire approximately 2,000 law enforcement professionals by the end of 2027.
The Secret Service has dealt with a loss of employees and trouble recruiting new ones in recent years for a litany of reasons, including poor morale, leadership changes, a lack of qualified applicants and extensive hiring process, The Washington Post reported.
The hiring spree started before recent high-profile incidents of political violence, including the April shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, but the “heightened threat environment certainly underscores the need to bolster the ranks,” spokesperson Nate Herring said.
The April shooting at the Washington Hilton outside the Correspondents’ Association dinner has raised speculation about possible gaps in security, particularly after multiple investigations found shortfalls in the Secret Service’s planning and staffing contributed to the 2024 assassination attempt against Trump at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Suspect Cole Tomas Allen charged past Secret Service before he was stopped outside the ballroom, in the lobby area of the hotel, where he exchanged fire with law enforcement, officials have said. A Secret Service agent was shot in the crossfire in his bulletproof vest, though its unclear who fired the shot. The event was not given the “National Special Security Event” designation reserved for others attended by high-level officials, such as the State of the Union address or an inauguration, The Washington Post reported, citing unnamed sources. WHCA Executive Director Steve Thomma told The Post he’s not aware of the annual event receiving that designation in previous years and an unnamed government source told the paper the designation is typically reserved for multiday events attended by the president and other top officials. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the security at the event, telling CNN “it was a massive security success story . . . this suspect barely breached the perimeter.” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., also told Politico he saw “no indication” that a security failure contributed to the shooting, following a briefing with Secret Service Director Sean Curran.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the security at the event, telling CNN “it was a massive security success story . . . this suspect barely breached the perimeter.” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., also told Politico he saw “no indication” that a security failure contributed to the shooting, following a briefing with Secret Service Director Sean Curran.
The Secret Service requested $91 million in funding for the 2028 presidential campaign and $50.8 million for the Olympics in its latest budget request. The events are among seven “National Special Security Events” in 2028, Herring said.
1,400. That’s how many Secret Service employees left the agency in fiscal years 2022 and 2023, the largest staffing loss at the agency in at least two decades, The New York Times reported, citing federal records.
The understaffing has made the already strenuous demands of the job even more difficult for agents who have to work overtime to make up for the shortage, according to multiple reports. “We can’t create enough incentives to negate the fact that we’re working our people very, very hard,” Secret Service Deputy Director Matthew Quinn told The Washington Post. Hiring and training for the agency is also an arduous process, and in order to hit its hiring goals, “they are going to have to eliminate all the management and red-tape barriers, former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told the paper. The agency did not have enough agents waiting in the wings for promotions to make up for the significant loss of employees in recent years, The New York Times reported in 2024. Training was slowed, in part, by an outdated facility that sometimes flooded. After an armed intruder broke into the White House in 2014, the agency hired employees who weren’t equipped for the job and more likely to leave in an accelerated recruitment push, according to The Times. A plan to recruit back retired agents, and allow them to earn a salary on top of their pensions, turned problematic, incentivizing some agents to retire early so they could be rehired and collect the dual pay, The Times reported. Herring said the agency has since “streamlined our hiring processes by reducing the old, bureaucratic process, allowing us to bring the best candidates on board quicker.” He said the Secret Service continues to “take a proactive approach to attrition,” including “group retention incentives for special agents, Secret Service police officers, cybersecurity experts, and other specialty teams to maintain seasoned professionals.”
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