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A sobering report by the Public Building Reforms Board paints a grim picture of federal employees’ blatant disregard for duty.
The report found that 94% of federal workers do not show up in person regularly, highlighting the poor service delivery and complacency in government offices.
The Department of Energy, the Agency for Global Media, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture topped the list of absentee/absconders with abysmal occupancy rates of 0%, 2%, and 6%, respectively.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (7%), the Environmental Protection Agency (8%), the Department of Labor (9%), and the Nuclear Regulation Commission (9%) followed closely with their appalling numbers.
Federal agencies with the highest office occupancy rates include the Department of Commerce, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Office of Personnel Management, each with an attendance rate of a measly 11%.
The “94%” figure is a conservative estimate, considering when you factor out jobs like security, where it’s impossible to work from home, only 1% of federal workers actually go to work.
Trump’s efficiency czars, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, have promised to end government bloat by streamlining government operations by 80%. With over 90% of federal employees not showing up for duty, Musk and Ramaswamy have more than enough room to wiggle.
Trump’s efficiency czars have alluded to the fact that politicians have shied away from making the federal government more efficient by cutting back the bureaucracy while saving taxpayers’ money.
Considered outsiders, Musk and Ramaswamy have the best chance to introduce sweeping changes in the change-resistant federal bureaucracy.
“Politicians have talked for a long time about cutting the size of government,” Ramaswamy said. “But when they get inside, they go native. If we’re ever going to crush the bureaucracy, it’s going to happen from the outside.”
Trump has proposed confronting the bureaucracy in Washington D.C. by reintroducing Schedule F, which would allow him to directly fire federal employees.
Among other proposed changes in the federal workforce include transferring federal agencies from Washington D.C., affecting 100,000 employees. Trump will also designate about 50,000 federal employees as political appointees without job security, allowing him to fire them if they do not align with government policies or slack at their jobs.
The incoming president has also threatened to scrap the Department of Education and transfer learning responsibilities to the states.
Trump’s HHS nominee, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has also proposed eliminating entire departments at the Federal Drug Administration (FDA).
Similarly, bureaucrats at the EPA, which has appalling reporting rates of just 8%, are also contemplating quitting ahead of Trump’s inauguration to avoid being transferred from Washington, D.C.
Meanwhile, thousands of federal employees have landed a deal, allowing them to continue working from home for the next five years.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) union inked the deal that allows 42,000 Social Security Administration (SSA) workers to continue benefiting from the work-from-home program introduced during the height of the pandemic until 2029.
Biden’s SSA Commissioner Martin O’Malley approved the deal allowing the federal employees to “maintain current levels of telework” through updated contracts.
Under the deal, some federal employees will be required to report to the office for as little as two days a week, exercabating absenteeism.
AFGE president Rich Couture says allowing workers to avoid reporting at their workstations will prevent them from quitting, thus securing “the ability of the Agency to serve the public.”
Meanwhile, millions of Americans find it difficult to secure jobs, with unemployment reaching a “three-year high of 4.1% in June, with 6.8 million people unemployed,” according to CNN.