How many federal jobs could you do?

Between January and November of last year, more than 300,000 federal employees left their jobs. As the second Trump administration targeted different government jobs for cuts, The Atlantic’s Alexandra Petri kept track and attempted to do the work herself.

“It just turned into me confusing a lot of people at various groceries,” Petri said about trying to find out past prices for eggs. “I got a lot of data ending in ‘ish,’ which is not, I think, data.”

Petri’s work also took her to the skies above Ohio in a hot air balloon and to a farm in Maryland to inspect her own milk.

She spoke with “Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal about her five-month experiment, which also included attempting to collect price data, like an employee of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

To hear their conversation, use the audio player at the top of the page.