October 1, 2011

We need to know more about "The Shadow Government"

While the full-time civilian federal workforce has remained relatively static at 2.1 million for the past three decades, a leading expert estimates there are about 7.5 million government contract workers, or more than three times the number of regular government workers.

The government can’t monitor and assess this shadow federal workforce. They don’t have the data.

There is no way to quantify the actual number of contracted employees who perform government work
Currently the federal government doesn’t have information related to race, ethnicity, or gender make-up of the contracted workforce.
We know very little about the wages and benefits contractors pay their workers. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that 43 percent of all employees who do the government’s work are employed by contractors and nearly 20 percent of contracted workers are paid poverty wages.

The Obama Administration has proposed to fix that that by creating a system to collect and analyze information about the legions of federal contract workers.

Add your voice for transparency in government!

The federal government has published the proposal and is now seeking public comment. The Chamber of Commerce and others that oppose transparency measures have already started exerting pressure to kill down the survey.

Please send a letter supporting transparency in federal contracting. A sample letter of support can be found here . Urge the administration to establish a system that will:

Cover all contracted workers
Make information publicly available
Collect comprehensive information on wages and benefits
Improve review of companies before they receive contracts

Comments can be submitted online here OR mail to :

Debra Carr, Director

Division of Policy, Planning and Program Development

Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs

200 Constitution Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20210

Regarding: RIN 1250-AA03

If you have any further questions, please contact Shar Habibi at shabibi@inthepublicinterest.org

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From the In The Public Interest Team

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