The Government's Dime 2024 $10 Billion For Empty Offices
As the average American taxpayers struggle to
pay rent, their hard-earned dollars are ironically
funneled into more real estate—Uncle Sam's
deserted buildings and storage facilities. A recent
Government Accountability Office (GAO) report
highlights a glaring inefficiency. Our
government senselessly wasted nearly $10
billion on empty offices.
Most federal offices are ghost towns, with 17 out
of 24 agencies using only 25% or less of their
space in 2023. Even the busiest offices barely
reach 50% capacity. This problem predates the
pandemic, but COVID-19's telework boom made
it worse.
The calculated building capacity based on
usable square feet per employee. It found that
many of these buildings are just oversized,
expensive storage units for empty desks.
In addition to the whopping $2 billion annual
maintenance cost, the federal government is
spending $5 billion on leases. This isn’t a new
issue either. In a 2022 waste report, I noted the
government spent $1.7 billion on 77,000 empty,
unused properties.
