politics
Secret Service Offers Recruitment Incentives Up to $75,000 as It Targets 4,000 New Hires by 2028
The agency is recruiting aggressively with bonuses for special agents and specialized teams while aiming to expand staff 20 percent ahead of seven National Special Security Events in 2028. It has already hired 824 trainees in the first seven months of fiscal year 2026. The push follows significant attrition and comes after an April shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
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The Secret Service is offering $40,000 recruitment incentives for special agents in dozens of states, $75,000 incentives for Secret Service police and special operations and $60,000 incentives for special agents on its counter assault team. 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.
Forbes reported that the incentives and urgent hiring push come as the Secret Service aims to create 852 new positions in fiscal year 2027, including 520 special agents.
The agency plans to hire 4,000 new employees by 2028, a 20 percent increase in staff that would bring the total to 10,000 employees. The Secret Service hired 824 trainees in the first seven months of fiscal year 2026, compared with 786 trainees hired in all of fiscal year 2025. It is on track to hire approximately 2,000 law enforcement professionals by the end of 2027.
Those gains follow the departure of 1,400 Secret Service employees in fiscal years 2022 and 2023, the largest staffing loss at the agency in at least two decades. Forbes reported that the understaffing has increased demands on existing personnel. "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.
The hiring acceleration began before recent incidents but gained emphasis after an April shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner at the Washington Hilton. Suspect Cole Tomas Allen was stopped in the lobby area of the Washington Hilton, exchanged fire with law enforcement, and accessed the ballroom.
