Fact Check: Misleading Claim About Federal Employees Working Full-Time in the Office
A recent Facebook post, circulating widely since at least early 2024, has falsely claimed that only 6% of all federal employees work full-time in an office. This inaccurate statistic has been amplified by various political figures, including members of Congress, prominent conservative commentators, and even individuals within the Trump White House, to support arguments for reducing the federal workforce and ending remote work arrangements. However, an official report from a federal agency definitively contradicts this claim, revealing that the actual percentage of federal employees working fully on-site is significantly higher.
The Facebook post, shared on January 28, 2024, asserts that "It appears that only 6% of all federal employees work full-time in an office." This statement, while seemingly straightforward, misrepresents the reality of the federal workforce and distorts the findings of a limited, non-scientific survey.
According to an August 2024 report submitted to Congress by a federal agency, a substantial 54% of federal employees perform their work duties entirely on-site. This comprehensive report, examining the majority of federal employees, clearly demonstrates that the 6% figure is grossly inaccurate and misleading. The claim’s origins can be traced back to an unscientific survey conducted by the Federal News Network, a news outlet covering federal agencies. This survey, conducted in April 2024, polled approximately 6,300 individuals who identified themselves as federal employees.
The survey found that only 6% of the respondents stated that they worked exclusively in-person, as opposed to teleworking or a hybrid arrangement. However, the survey’s limitations were significant. Firstly, it was not designed to be representative of the entire federal workforce, which encompasses millions of employees across various agencies and departments. Secondly, the respondents were self-selected, meaning they voluntarily participated in the survey. This self-selection process introduces the potential for bias, as the individuals who choose to participate may have different perspectives or experiences than the broader population of federal employees.
Furthermore, the survey question focused on whether individuals worked "exclusively in-person," not whether they worked "in an office," the term used in the Facebook post. Many federal positions involve in-person work that is not necessarily performed in an office setting, such as field work, inspections, or law enforcement activities. Therefore, even the original survey findings cannot be directly translated into a claim about the percentage of federal employees working full-time in an office.
Despite these limitations, the 6% figure has been selectively cited and misinterpreted by various individuals and organizations to advance their own agendas. For example, Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, in her December 2024 report criticizing teleworking by federal employees, stated that 6% of federal workers report in-person on a full-time basis, attributing this statistic to the Federal News Network story. However, her report omitted the crucial context that the figure was derived from a non-scientific survey of self-selected respondents, not a comprehensive study of the entire federal workforce.
In response to this misrepresentation, the Federal News Network added an editor’s note to its report to clarify its non-scientific nature and emphasize that it was never intended to make broad statistical claims about the federal workforce. Jared Serbu, the publication’s deputy editor, explained that the 6% figure was simply part of an analysis of their readership’s observations and attitudes surrounding return-to-office policies.
The persistence of this false statistic highlights the dangers of selectively citing data and ignoring methodological limitations. As Nicholas Bloom, a professor at Stanford University and the founder of a firm studying remote work trends, noted, the 6% figure has likely been cited repeatedly not because it is accurate, but because it supports a particular political narrative.
The Office of Management and Budget study conducted in August 2024 found that 54% of the nation’s nearly 2.3 million federal CFO agency workers were fully on-site and serving in positions that required them to be physically present during all working hours as of May 2024. The CFO agencies include a wide array of departments such as agriculture, defense, education, energy, interior and labor among 24 agencies in total. They comprise the majority of the roughly 3 million total federal employees. The study also indicated that only 46% of the CFO agency employees were even eligible for remote work, and only 10% worked remotely with no expectation of in-person work.
Despite these more accurate and comprehensive data points, the 6% claim has continued to circulate, even being repeated by conservative commentators like Sean Hannity and Ben Shapiro as evidence of government waste. Tennessee Representative Chuck Fleischmann, a Republican, cited it in a Facebook post characterizing federal employees working remotely as "lazy and entitled DC bureaucrats." Furthermore, both NBC News and Axios have quoted an unidentified Trump White House official who referenced Ernst’s figure to justify the administration’s push to trim the federal workforce.
The continued reliance on this inaccurate statistic demonstrates a willingness to prioritize political messaging over factual accuracy. It also underscores the importance of critically evaluating data and considering the source and methodology behind any statistical claim. In this case, the claim that only 6% of federal employees work full-time in an office is demonstrably false and based on a misinterpretation of a limited, non-scientific survey. The available evidence indicates that the actual percentage of federal employees working fully on-site is significantly higher, rendering the 6% figure misleading and inaccurate.
