The pandemic has long since come to a close, but only a small portion of federal employees have come back to their offices full-time. Meanwhile, our government is spending billions on upkeep for offices that remain largely vacant.

From The Daily Wire. Only 6% of federal employees work from an office full-time, and a third are fully remote. And some aren’t actually working when they “work from home,” a Senate investigation found.

View Comments (0)

Who is praying on the wall?

“Washington is still operating as if it’s March 2020,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), the chair of the Senate DOGE Caucus and the report’s author, wrote.

“Just three percent of the federal workforce teleworked daily prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, six percent of workers report in-person on a full-time basis, while nearly one-third are entirely remote,” the report states.

Government office buildings have an occupancy rate of only 12%, yet the government spends $16 billion a year to operate them. …

Office buildings are so empty that the water supply at the office of the Environmental Protection Agency — which is tasked with ensuring clean drinking water — was left stagnant for so long that it developed dangerous bacteria, according to the audit. But unions have demanded that full individual workstations for each employee be maintained for the rare occasions they are used, in addition to demanding that members be allowed to work from home. …

Federal employees get paid more when their offices are in high cost-of-living areas. But at some agencies, up to 80% of teleworking employees now live in lower cost-of-living areas, while still collecting the higher pay. …

More than 90% of Department of Housing and Urban Development employees work from home and are not required to come to the office more than once a week. One HUD employee — a former union president — allegedly got a DUI while supposedly working from home. Remote work enabled another woman to hold two six-figure government jobs at the same time …

The federal government doesn’t have widespread systems monitoring whether employees log in to their computers, or from where, each day, Ernst said. When the Department of Health and Human Services did look at employees’ computer logins, it found that up to 30% of “teleworkers” on any given day were not actually working during the COVID pandemic …

Ernst said, “If bureaucrats don’t want to return to work, make their wish come true.”

She proposed that the government be required to sell off any real estate that is not being fully used, and that agencies should also be relocated across the country to lower-cost areas that have a connection to the work being done—with the Department of Agriculture, for example, being in farm country. …

What do you think of Ernst’s proposal? Share your prayers for our government below.

(Excerpt from The Daily Wire. Photo Credit: Carol M. Highsmith – Library of Congress)