Just the Facts from Senator Tom Coburn

• The federal government now has 2.7 million civilian federal employees.
  
  
• The average annual salary for a full time federal employee is $74,403 (2009).
  
  
• According to a recent news analysis of federal employment data during the current recession, the number of federal employees earning more than $100,000 has risen by 46 percent, the number making more than $150,000 is up by 119 percent, and the number earning more than $170,000 grew 93 percent.
  
  
• From 2001-2007, a comprehensive review of federal employees revealed that 18 federal agencies had logged 19.6 million absent-without-leave (AWOL) employee hours. An estimated 300,000 federal employees were classified as AWOL during this period, with the incidence of AWOL employees growing by 45 percent from 2001 to 2007.
  
  
• For the most recent five-year period examined by Congress, federal agencies spent $1.4 billion attending conferences, oftentimes in hot vacation spots like Las Vegas, Orlando and Hawaii. In one year alone, nearly 21,000 Department of Agriculture employees visited more than 6,700 “conference and training” activities around the world. Between 2005 and 2007, the Department of Homeland Security sent employees to more than 8,000 conferences at a cost of $110 million.
  
  
• Official estimates indicate that $68 million is lost each year as federal employees nearing retirement use up sick leave time.
  
  
• In its “13 Careers for the Next Decade” feature, Kiplinger’s magazine encourages its readers to pursue federal government management positions, noting it will be “the largest source of new jobs” with an expected 300,000 hires over the next two years alone.
  
  
• In estimating federal employment trends, the non-partisan Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicts a 19.5 percent increase in the number of tax examiners, collectors, and revenue agents over the next decade.
  
  
• While the BLS forecasts a 1.3 percent drop in the need for economists within the federal government over the next ten years, it expects to see an 8.6 percent rise in the number of lawyers employed by federal agencies.