By Adam Andrzejewski for RealClearPolicy
The United States government has made history with a new record: the largest disclosed payroll in modern-day history.
Employees of 122 federal executive agencies now number 1.4 million — a 3.7 percent increase over the 1.35 million employees in 2016.
Add in civilian employees of the Department of Defense as well as U.S. Postal Service employees and those numbers jump to 2.8 million federal employees, costing $217 billion, $225 billion when adjusted for inflation.
That’s according to a new oversight report from our auditors at OpenTheBooks, “Mapping the Swamp: A Study of the Administrative State (FY2020).”
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The taxpayer cost of price of the federal government increases when you add 30 percent for benefits: $292 billion.
It costs $2.3 million per minute, $140 million per hour and $1.1 billion per workday. (And this is just the disclosed payroll… there’s a lot missing that isn’t disclosed.)
And it’s getting more expensive: in the executive agencies, there were 532,784 highly-compensated employees who earned $100,000 or more in 2020, a 31-percent increase over the 406,960 in 2016. Those that earned $200,000 or more increased by 52-percent and staffers making $300,000 or more increased by 144%!
Then, there were the 26,853 federal employees who out-earned all 50 governors, including the highest paid in New York, at $225,000.
The swamp wasn’t drained. It’s winning and larger than ever before.
Syndicated with permission from RealClearWire.
The #WasteOfTheDay is presented by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.