Dead Tape: Annual Federal Paperwork Hours Consume Equivalent Of 14,983 Human Lifetimes (Nov. 20th, 2024, Forbes)
The ICB’s “Paperwork Reduction Accounting” appendix indicates that 10.5 billion hours were required to complete paperwork from 39 departments, agencies and commissions—up from 10.34 in 2022. A table below depicts these.
The bulk—6.657 billion hours—is attributable to the Department of the Treasury (up from 6.603 in 2022). The runner-up Department of Health and Human Services clocks in at 1.59 billion hours (compared to 1.65 billion in 2022; here we do find reduction). Past years’ cross-governmental paperwork-hour tallies appear below, by fiscal year.2015: 9.865 billion hours
2016: 11.442
2017: 11.529
2018: 11.357
2019: 10.998
2020: 11.618
2021: 9.974
2022: 10.34
Despite the emphasis on ease of access to programs, paperwork hours are considerably higher today than the 7.2 billion at which they stood back in 2000. There are far more programs today, although the Government Accountability Office (GAO) affirms we don’t know how many.