A new report shows that President Donald Trump has delivered on his promise to end the federal government’s work-from-home frenzy, which in many cases saw bureaucrats doing little to no actual work while still collecting a paycheck from taxpayers.
According to a Gallup survey out earlier this month, just 26 percent of federal employees are now fully remote – down from 40 percent in 2022, well after the COVID-19 pandemic had subsided. At the same time, the number of hybrid employees has plummeted from over 60 percent last July to 28 percent, while the share of fully in-person workers has shot up from less than 20 percent last year to 46 percent.
That remarkable turnaround is credited to Trump’s return-to-office mandate. On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order directing agencies to end pandemic-era remote work arrangements and begin moving toward full-time, in-person workplaces, effective March 10.
While some federal employee unions and Democrats have objected to the order, the numbers show that it is achieving its goal and signaling a cultural reset inside the federal bureaucracy.
Throughout the Biden administration, which saw remote work run amok, watchdogs documented widespread abuse of lax telework policies. A June inspector general report found that more than 58 percent of employees failed to meet minimum in-office requirements, while close to 30 percent were working on expired telework agreements. Another 21 percent had paperwork discrepancies. Fifteen percent had no approved telework agreements at all but were still literally phoning it in.
Chuck Ezell, the former Acting Director of the Office of Personnel Management, concluded that under Biden, telework policies were “mismanaged and oversight was virtually nonexistent.”
A report from Sen. Joni Ernst described even more blatant abuses. One Veterans Affairs worker logged into a meeting from his bubble bath. A Housing and Urban Development employee was paid for hours spent in an Oklahoma jail after being arrested for drunk driving. A Social Security staffer ran a side business while teleworking and had his mother and wife log into his federal system to cover his absence. Another federal employee told Ernst that telework was “like being on vacation.”
According to Ernst, only about six percent of federal employees were in the office on a full-time basis under Biden.
The problems went beyond individual misconduct and reflected deeper failures across the bureaucracy. In June 2022, the Functional Government Initiative (FGI) obtained an internal Health and Human Services report showing that, based on VPN data, about 25 percent of HHS employees were not logging into their agency’s software suite on any given day.
These failures to show up had real consequences. In one case, the FDA “lost” a 34-page whistleblower report warning of an impending baby formula shortage, a clear coordination failure in a remote-work environment.
Unsurprisingly, FGI’s review of 24 agencies showed that official leave use plummeted after telework expanded. Annual leave fell by more than 15 percent and sick leave by 30 percent, representing nearly $1.4 billion in base pay. Clearly, workers were enjoying what amounted to vacation time without officially requesting time off.
At the same time, Ernst warned that agencies were locked in a “perverse arms race” to lure employees from each other by offering ever-looser telework policies.
Several major departments, including Interior, Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Housing and Urban Development (HUD), had no system to verify whether remote employees were working at all.
An October 2024 audit from HUD’s inspector general found that nearly 85 percent of employees at the agency had telework agreements and another nine percent were fully remote. While that shift was initially justified during the pandemic, the agency failed to update or properly verify many of those arrangements as the years went on.
The inspector general further flagged that up to 11 percent of telework agreements contained errors, including outdated duty stations, incorrect locality pay designations, and mismatched schedules. Roughly nine percent of the HUD workforce lived more than 50 miles from their assigned duty station, including about 30 staffers who were more than 1,000 miles away. Some were listed as commuting across the United States every week or from the mainland to Hawaii.
HUD had already identified six cases where workers received inflated locality pay based on incorrect information. The inspector general warned that many more employees could be overpaid without stronger verification. Trump’s return-to-office mandate reduced the opportunity for such abuse by requiring employees to report to their official duty stations in person.
Private-sector businesses could never afford the level of unproductivity that became routine inside the federal workforce during the pandemic. A company that paid employees to skip logins, run side businesses on the clock, or join meetings from a bubble bath would quickly go bankrupt. Yet taxpayers were forced to bankroll that dysfunction for years.
That era is ending, and the political symbolism is just as important as the practical gains. After years of empty offices, wasted real estate expenses, and widespread telework abuse, Trump’s order marked a visible break with the bureaucracy’s pandemic-era culture. Instead of accommodating remote perks, the federal government under Trump is putting service to taxpayers first again.
Sarah Katherine Sisk is a proud Hillsdale College alumna and a master’s student in economics at George Mason University. You can follow her on X @SKSisk76.
I still want to see them provide five bullet points about what they did last week. If they can’t do that you know they did nothing, and should be terminated. You know that’s the case of the Union is advising them not to respond. Union equals no work. A great place to go to make a lot of money and not have to work. Unions are basically a blister on the ass of America. They used to be great not so much anymore they’re just a money laundering scheme for the Democrats
I only have a few words to say about this article: Good and about time.
Is this not FRAUD? Why can’t we go after these employees to get back the taxpayer monies? The guy who had his family log in broke numerous laws giving access to government databases. Plenty of people were out shopping, picking up kids or just simply not working at all. Biden also wrote an order (or at least the auto-pen did) to get back to office, nothing happened. Why did Trump sign one in March and yet people STILL aren’t fully back? They were supposed to be fired!!
It sounds like we only need about half as many federal workers and that could save taxpayers a lot of money!
If there is still 26 percent working from home, it hasn’t ended yet ‼️
Disgusting; that is only 1 of the reasons that our country was on the edge of bankruptcy; Thank goodness for Doge and Pres. Trump; time for those lazy, lying, deadbeats to learn what real work is and get off their good-for-nothing bottoms. Yay! for our good watchdogs, way to go.
Thats the way it should be, keep going until they are all back to the office. If they want remote jobs, go find one. IMO
Just a few words (out of perhaps thousands) that accurately describe Democrats and unions – CORRUPTION THROUGH THE RANKS, SUPPORTERS OF UNPRODUCTIVE LAZY WORKERS, PROTECTORS AND DEFENDERS OF INCOMPETENT WORKERS, POWER-HUNGRY MONEY EMBEZZLERS OF FUNDS, AND OF COURSE THE HUNDREDS OF UNLAWFUL AND FALSELY CLAIMED HOT TUB MARTINI LUNCHES AND EXOTIC TRIPS (ALL AT UNION MEMBERS AND TAXPAYERS EXPENSE, DISGUISED AS ‘BUSINESS’ MEETINGS).
MORAL-LESS CESS POOLS OF CORRUPTION AND EVIL.
Automate positions
cut positions not needed
CUT staffing
downsize
Modernize
Change policies
Merge needed positions to save $$
The bureaucracies have always been hiding places for non-producers, but this microscopic analysis will hopefully catch the worst offenders. It is interesting that Congress should be one of the examiners.
It’s been 5 months since the March 10th return to work mandate. If they’re not back by now, they should be fired.
That state of affairs is what Demorats were, and still are, advocating for.
” . . which in many cases saw bureaucrats doing little to no actual work while still collecting a paycheck from taxpayers.” And sometimes having two jobs since they didn’t need to be present at one.
What a concept. You have to be in an office to work. The democrats saw a chance to destroy America by keeping working from home going. President Trump changed all that. And of course the left screamed he is a dictator makes people go to the office to work. The pandemic has been over for at least 4 years when president Trump was re-elected. The abuse that was done by many by working from home, spoiled it for those that did an honest day’s work. The only way to get productivity under control was to have everyone back in the office. Only the democrats complained. Every time President Trump has a common sense plan the democrats are against it. Criminals should not be in jail. Victims should. People should come here illegally, the taxpayers will pay for them being here. Defund the police and order what is left of the police depts. to stand down. It is a party every week in the inner cities of Chicago, NYC, LA etc. etc. Common sense says send the police in with help from other agencies. No it is a free for all but don’t worry crime is down. If it isn’t we will demonstrate against president Trump. Who wants to make America safe again and save lives. The left does not. The same with the federal workforce working from home. Biden let it go on to keep the votes. Deporting criminals makes sense only the democrats make it the cause du jour. The same with working from home. Have to keep your voters happy. If it destroys the economy, so much thebetter.
We are living in two Americas. The one we have known all our lives under president Trump. And then the communist America under the left. Like Bernie Sanders said if you elect Mamdani this will spread all over America. We have only president Trump standing between these two Americas. Which one would you support and vote for?
We all know that man giving an opportunity to get something for nothing will not refuse. The opportunity came, he took it. Question is who has given him that opportunity , what was to be gained by it, had there been a follow up to see how it worked, has anyone been held responsible for the outcome. There are too many cooks in that kitchen and no one seems to be worried about not knowing what is going on. Appoint one good chef and let him choose the best help, no need for extras who are useless, efficiency works.
There was never any LEGITIMATE reason for stay-at-home work to start with! The government unions [and AFT and NEA] wanted an easy go and pushed this useless “benefit.” Who knows what these guys did at home. Did they put in eight-hour days?
If 26% of federal employees are still working from home, then 26% of federal office buildings should be closed and sold to the private sector or the leases for office space should be cancelled. Why are we paying for offices for people who are not there?
They all of them cheating Should pay a penalty filing income tax and using it to pay back what they cheated tax payers out of
So you have to actually GO to work to get paid? What a concept.
I couldn’t finish reading this article the information made me so angry.
This is a good decision. People are not working and taking tax payers money.
I really thought about how this work from home would work and then decided that they are government workers and how good they are at”sluffing off”,isn’t that what Trump and Musk found out.These people will squeal like a herd of hogs.
These persons who have scammed the taxpayers dollars should be fined and fired due to their scam and lax in mental ability to perform their job. Regular workers in most systems would atomatically be FIRED! NOT given any more chances. These people have given Americans a slap in the face. Find someone else with integrity and HONESTY to do the job!!!!
As a remote teleworker for a regular company for over 20 years, I have a bit of a different perspective. I appreciated the opportunity to work from home. I had a much nicer office at home compared to my cubicle in the office. I worked harder and longer at home, rarely taking breaks. I also had a high work ethic. But there was also accountability and a way to measure my productivity. It is incomprehensible the way these Federal workers abused their job. I agree with some others who have said these people should be punished. Their current wages docked to make up for all the time that they stole from American taxpayers. There are jobs that can be done remotely and maybe all remote jobs should not be done away with (I have some relatives who would be affected and I know they work with integrity) Instead the government should follow what private sector businesses do and come up with accountability and a measurable way to determine that the work is being done.
It’s high time government employees are treated like private sector ones. Need accountability. No show, no wages. Same could be said of our elected officials too. WAY to much “recess” time. Get serious or lose wages.
Why does the US Government have union representation? The work from home program is a huge scam and as a retired federal worker I personally witnessed the theft of taxpayer dollars to pay people to do nothing. There’s people in leadership who should go to prison for enabling the work from home scam!!!!
Great news!! They should have went back to work years ago, what makes them different!!!
Go back to the office or get fired!!!
It’s good to hear! People need to get back to work at their jobs not sitting in their houses. This turned you into a social illiterate and makes you feel like you’re whacked out all the time. I think that the leftist wackjob’s and lazy people like it. My wife was doing it for a couple years and did not like it at all so she finally retired. It turns you into a zombie. I think that the leftists like it because it turns you into a socialist.
In the private sector, it’s called stealing. In the government bureaucracies…..it’s called work. Nearly all these jobs are unnecessary. If they don’t have a tracking system to know if people are working or not….and the output of these supposed employees is not missed….FIRED!
I’m surprised there wasn’t a baby boom from government workers about 9 months after the “work at home” debacle. Come to think of it, most were only doing at home what they’d been doing to taxpayers for years!
This just proves that about half of government workers aren’t necessary at all. Those who have not returned to work in person should immediately be fired.
The fraud they committed should be criminal. Yet nothing will happen. But if YOU collected even a little too much from your government benefits they will confiscate it back from you! Even if it was their error. But these government leaches get away with it.
Government unions should be illegal and they were for decades. Then our selected politicians did something stupid and sold our country out to the unions.
As the Trump administration tries to clean up this mess, every attempt is fought with lawsuits. When those lawsuits fail, those who filed them should also have to reimburse the taxpayers for the cost of those lawsuits! Enough already.
One thing Biden’s “do nothing from home” scheme showed is that we can get along fine without so many federal workers. Trump was right in getting rid of or consolidating whole departments that were not doing anything productive anyway.
A few years ago, I knew someone who worked for a large company which mainly dealt with cyber and network security had for some time allowed employees to work remotely from home, because most of what they did involved practically full time use of computers. One day, the company, located in Tennessee discovered one employee who had supposedly been working remotely from home, was actually living in South America with his girl friend for about six months. The surprising thing was no one noticed until he made some kind of blunder which led to the discovery of his actual location.
The level of potential abuse from these kinds of arrangements is simply off the charts.
I believe we need to make the rules as stringent as possible, and failure to comply is grounds for termination. No three strikes, not even any second chances. We could probably easily do without at least 50% of our bureaucratic executive employees. And after that, it’s time to start trimming congressional staffers. It would be nice if congressman and women and senators, had to read their own legislation, not just hear a summary from a staffer
No accountability! The FED is a near total waste and roadblock to progress.
I have nothing against remote work positions but too many people have abused how they are clocking in and actually doing their job. Especially since they get assignments to do and use themselves to decide how much time is spent on the assignment, where if they were in office they would be given another assignment as soon as they finished—decreasing efficiency level to employees preferred performance speed versus efficiency needed by the company.
We’ll see. It is L O N G past time for it, but we’ll see.
This is a good decision.
Not mentioned in this article is the number of government contractors who continue to work from home.
The less productive federal employees are, the less they meddle in our private affairs.
I work from home much of the time (not for the federal government). I find it’s actually more efficient than going to the office. Complaints about employees goofing off instead of working from home may be valid in some cases, but the solution is to weed out the goof-offs, not to prohibit working from home.
Woke up, got out of bed
Dragged a comb across my head Found my way downstairs and drank a cup
And looking up, I noticed I was late
Americans do it every working day.
Government workers should work from Government Offices because of Accountability. Most all of the employable workforce work from the Companies Business established locations. Bravo for President Trump moving in the right direction!
For those who are only seeing this as a benefit, let me put a much needed bit of perspective on this. Yes, many federal workers did wretched things like working another job or not showing up at all. But let’s see the truth in that scenario.
Did the bosses do their job by checking on the work performance of these employees? If so, they condoned this behavior, so bringing those employees into an office is not going to make them work their jobs because their bosses allow them to do things they are not supposed to do anyway. No gain for tax payers.
For those who work from home, they must always be logged into their computers during the workday. Algorithms can be written, if the government is not already monitoring, to see who is logged in and what they are doing. In the office, they can log out of their computer and claim they are attending a meeting or doing something work related without the computer and be given more leeway because it is not as easily proven they are not doing their jobs.
Additionally, the fact that GSA (the government department in charge of buildings) did not get rid of buildings no longer used during the time while government employees were not using them is not the fault of each department. It is GSA alone who caused taxpayers to pay for unused buildings.
Now that employees are back in those buildings, not only is there no longer the ability to just sell those buildings and save the taxpayers this money, the taxpayers must now also pay for additional utilities to keep the buildings fully used, maintenance both for the structures themselves and for cleaning, security both electronic and manpower as many federal buildings need full-time security guards.
When the workers were at home, the workers paid for their own internet, utilities, office space, desks, monitors, etc. Now, taxpayers pay for these things.
How are the tax-payers benefiting more with workers in office rather than at home???
Any supervisor that hasn’t seen all of his employees in person by now should fire them. If they do not, the supervisor should be fired. Maybe all the feds that moved to Florida will have to quit or move back to their duty post location.
Nope you can’t you have reasonable accommodation requests for people with disabilities. This is the case for both civilian and government jobs. That number will NEVER be 0%.
Why isn’t this % of those coming to work even higher? Enforce or fire period!
I knew this was the trend but liked finding some details.
I’m for 100% remote/teleworking federal government and private sector. The idea is to eliminate Waste – office are expensive to run – many positions are not dealing with a person. In today’s world texting, email, video are way more effective. As a consumer, whom wants. to drive, park and wait in line to speak to a person. When this can be done on the phone, texting, email and video. Working in a office Cub is like a Bull Pen in a Barn! Micromanaging!
More work is done that has been proven with stats – the health and happiness of the employee!
So alot of talent will be lost – there will be more sick days, lost of productive, for clicks in the Bull pen environment. Employees don’t care about Gym memberships, food being delivered – most of that is unhealthy. They want to be around there families, children and some take care of elders, too.
This is why there is quiet quitting, leaves of absence and more.
The way of the future is Remote//Teleworking!
I agree with the back to office mandate but during the Pandemic and for a while afterwards, I know of Many government employees, local, state and federal that put in Many More hours working from home. Many were still doing work at 9, 10, 11 pm and sometimes into the early morning hours. They may have been doing personal things as well but they damn sure put in more than the required 8hrs a day.