The House Oversight and Accountability Committee has revealed what many conservatives have suspected for years: an excessive number of federal employees are teleworking, leaving taxpayer-funded office space largely unused. In a new report, the committee highlighted billions of dollars wasted on maintaining empty offices, all while the Biden administration continues to coddle federal unions and prioritize remote work over public service. The timing is particularly curious, as these practices appear designed to make it harder for the incoming Trump administration to clean house and enforce accountability.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer didn’t hold back during a Wednesday hearing titled “The Stay-at-Home Federal Workforce: Another Biden-Harris Legacy.” The numbers paint a bleak picture. Out of 2.28 million federal civilian employees, about 228,000 reportedly never set foot in an office. Among the 1.1 million eligible for telework, many average just three in-office days per week. Some agencies take things even further, with employees collectively spending less than half their work hours on-site. Meanwhile, remote workers—who never have to show up at all—have increased fivefold since 2019.
The report points to startling trends in specific departments. Since 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services saw its remote workforce jump from 2% to 29%, while the Department of Education soared from 2% to 55%. The General Services Administration leads the pack, with 50% of its employees now classified as remote. Despite this massive shift, federal agencies occupy an estimated 25% or less of their office space, with some headquarters reporting occupancy rates as low as 9%. All this while taxpayers foot a $7 billion annual bill for leasing and maintaining these ghost towns.
Adding insult to injury, federal agencies have also splurged on furnishing these empty offices. Over the past few years, $3.3 billion was spent on furniture, with some agencies dropping hundreds of thousands on conference room upgrades for spaces that go largely unused. Even GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan, tasked with managing federal properties, has reportedly spent just one in four workdays at her D.C. headquarters, opting instead to telework from Missouri.
The Biden administration’s cozy relationship with federal unions has only deepened the problem. Through long-term collective bargaining agreements, officials have entrenched telework guarantees, limiting management’s ability to hold employees accountable. In April, the Office of Personnel Management issued a rule that further shields federal workers from scrutiny, making it more difficult for the next administration to reform the system. For taxpayers and the incoming Trump administration, this legacy of bloated inefficiency and unchecked telework is yet another costly burden to unravel.
