The government spends $15.7 billion each year to lease and maintain its office space, but only 6% of federal employees actually show up for in-person work, according to new findings from OpenTheBooks and Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa.

Many federal buildings are truly a “ghost town,” as Ernst put it. The Department of Energy’s headquarters is 1.8 million square feet large, about half of which is usable square footage. In 2023, an average of eight people were in the building at any given time.

The Department of Veteran Affairs and the Agency for Global Media are some of the other biggest offenders, with 72 and 172 people, respectively, on average occupying their paid office space.

Many federal employees receive “locality pay” based on where they work, including for cities with a high cost of living. But as many as 68% are getting that pay in error because they work from home, Ernst found. One employee got a bonus for working in an expensive city despite living 2,000 miles away from their office.

The federal government is preventing OpenTheBooks from identifying where many of its employees are actually located. Over 281,000 workers’ info was redacted in response to an open records request.

Biden asked federal employees last October to “substantially increase” in-person work, but most government union workers ignored the request, according to Ernst.

This December, Biden gave in to the unions, granting 42,000 employees permission to stay at home until at least 2029.

“If you exclude security guards & maintenance personnel, the number of government workers who show up in person and do 40 hours of work a week is closer to 1%!” Almost no one,” Elon Musk wrote on X.

Government employees are responsible to taxpayers, not the other way around. Effective work should take precedence over convenience. 

(The #WasteOfTheDay is from forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com via RealClearWire.)