“The federal government owns over 460 million square feet of office space that costs billions annually to operate and maintain,” the report notes.

The GAO surveyed the 24 federal agencies that use most of the federal government’s buildings; these included the Departments of State, Commerce, Justice, Transportation, Homeland Security, and Education, as well as agencies like the Social Security Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency. Then, the GAO calculated the square footage of each agency’s headquarters compared to its average in-person attendance during one week each in January, February, and March 2023.

The report found that, on average, 17 of the 24 agencies surveyed used 25 percent or less of the available space in their headquarters buildings. Even agencies on the higher end only averaged between 40 percent and 49 percent. …

To make matters worse, even as agency headquarters are mostly empty, “federal agencies spend about $5 billion annually to lease office space from the private sector and from the federal government,” accounting for over 83 million square feet of office space.

[Why are we paying for private space with so much federally owned office space sitting unused? If we ever get serious about downsizing these agencies, this problem will only get worse. We overbuilt for the bureaucratic state, and now the market has collapsed for commercial real estate, cutting off a path of rational financial retreat. Better start looking at condo conversions. — Ed]