American government uses hundreds of titles, many of them easy to confuse. A Senate majority leader is not mentioned in the Constitution but runs the Senate floor, while the President pro tempore is in the Constitution but has little day-to-day power. A ranking member is not a rank, and an under secretary outranks an assistant secretary.
This guide is a field guide to the major offices in all three branches and the career ranks below them. Each title links to a full entry explaining how the office is filled, what it does, and how it has changed. Following briefgov practice, current holders are listed in each entry's key facts rather than here.
Department heads are secretaries, except the Attorney General, who leads Justice. Below them, deputy secretaries run daily operations, followed by under secretaries and assistant secretaries. Other top titles include the Director of National Intelligence, created in 2004, the FBI Director, appointed to a single ten-year term, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest-ranking military officer though outside the chain of command, and the Chair of the Federal Reserve. The Solicitor General argues the government's cases before the Supreme Court, and inspectors general audit and investigate within each agency.
The Chief Justice of the United States leads the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary, joined by eight associate justices. Circuit judges sit on the courts of appeals and district judges on trial courts, all with life tenure. Magistrate judges, appointed by district judges for eight-year terms, and bankruptcy judges, appointed by appeals courts for fourteen-year terms, handle much of the routine work. Judges who meet age and service requirements may take senior status, a form of semi-retirement that opens a seat for a new appointment. Administrative law judges, despite the title, work inside executive agencies.
The 535 voting members of Congress are joined by five delegates and a resident commissioner from Puerto Rico who can serve on committees but cannot vote on final passage. Elected officers, including the Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the Senate, keep records and run operations, and nonpartisan parliamentarians advise the presiding officers on rules. The Comptroller General, who heads the Government Accountability Office for a fifteen-year term, and the Librarian of Congress lead major legislative branch agencies.
Below the appointees are the career staff. The Senior Executive Service includes roughly 8,000 top managers, most of them career officials, and the General Schedule grades from GS-1 to GS-15 cover most professional and administrative staff. Every four years the Plum Book lists all the positions open to political appointment, from Senate-confirmed posts to the confidential aides known as Schedule C.
The President and Vice President are the only elected officials in the executive branch. Around them, the Executive Office of the President includes senior aides whom the President appoints without Senate approval, such as the Chief of Staff, who manages the White House, the National Security Advisor, who runs the National Security Council staff, the White House Counsel, and the Press Secretary. The director of the Office of Management and Budget, by contrast, must be confirmed. The First Lady holds no office but has long had her own staff and public role.
The Speaker, elected by the whole House but in practice the majority party's leader, controls the floor and is second in line to the presidency. The House majority leader schedules legislation, and the minority leader leads the other party. In the Senate, the Vice President is President of the Senate but rarely presides, the President pro tempore is by custom the longest-serving senator of the majority, and the majority leader sets the agenda. Whips in both chambers count and round up votes. Committee chairs come from the majority, and ranking members are the senior minority members.
See how the branches fit together in the three branches of government, meet the people behind the titles in civil servants vs. elected officials, or explore Congress's leadership in congressional leadership: who's who.