House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) declared on Thursday that the GOP-led Congress and President-elect Donald Trump will “demand” that federal employees return to their desks. Johnson made the statement on Capitol Hill, where he and other lawmakers were meeting with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy about the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which Trump has appointed them to lead.
“One of the first things that I think you’ll see is a demand from the new administration and from all of us in Congress that federal workers return to their desks and get back to the work that they’re supposed to be doing. I think that is common sense,” Johnson told reporters. “What you’re going to see here — the overriding theme here — is a return to common sense and a return to accountability and efficiency in government,” he added. “I think that’s going to serve the people well. There’ll be a lot — there’ll be a lot more to tell you all in the days ahead.”
When asked about labor unions opposing efforts to return workers to the office, Johnson referenced a just-completed Senate investigation regarding the number of federal employees physically working in their assigned office space. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), who leads the Senate DOGE Caucus, released a 60-page report on Thursday revealing that only 6% of federal employees work from an office full-time, a third work fully remotely, and some aren’t actually performing their duties while “working from home,” according to The Daily Wire.
“There was a report that came out today. I don’t know if you all have seen it, but someone did a little survey of how many federal employees are actually working in the office,” the speaker said. “By one estimate, it may be about 1% if you don’t count the security personnel that are covering these buildings. That is absurd, and it’s not something the American people would stand for.”
Musk responded to Ernst’s report on the X platform. “If you exclude security guards & maintenance personnel, the number of government workers who show up in person and do 40 hours of work a week is closer to 1%!” Musk exclaimed. “Almost no one.” Ramaswamy said in a post to X a couple of weeks ago: “Most federal workers don’t physically show up, yet the cost of maintaining & providing energy for govt office buildings is $15BN/year (not counting billions more spent on office furnishings). The government owns 7,967 vacant buildings. This is nuts. Sounds like a job for DOGE.”