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A U.S. Postal Service employee stashed nearly 50,000 pieces of undelivered mail in her California home, according to a criminal information filed against the worker.Federal investigators charge that Sherry Watanabe hid "approximately 48,288 pieces of United States mail" in her apartment. The mail was intended for delivery to customers along Watanabe’s route in Placentia, an Orange County city.Watanabe, 48, was named in a one-count felony criminal information filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. In a plea agreement with prosecutors, Watanabe has admitted to the mail hoarding.According to the plea agreement, Watanabe was hired as a mail carrier...

IMPORTANT:This information should not be downloaded using government equipment, read during duty time, sent to others using government equipment, or sent to anyone while in a government building because it involves election related activity.WASHINGTON – In response to the announcement that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has selected U.S. Senator Tim Kaine as her running mate, American Federation of Government Employees National President J. David Cox Sr. today issued the following statement:“While representing Virginia in the U.S. Senate, Tim Kaine has been a vocal advocate for government workers and the programs we deliver to the American public. Like Hillary...

After crawling ahead at just a 0.5% annual pace in the first quarter, the slowest in two years, the American economy is due for a bounce — but how high? The jury is out whether the economy has simply hit another speed bump or is facing a more fundamental slowdown, but some details in Thursday’s Commerce Department report point to the latter. U.S. GDP also fizzled at the start of 2014 and 2015, shrinking 0.9% in the former and edging up 0.6% last year... Yet it’s iffy whether the economy can rebound to the same extent... On the plus side,...

Donald Trump leads the Republican field among federal employees, but many still say they would never work for him. One in four federal workers would consider leaving their jobs if Trump were elected president, according to a new survey conducted by the Government Business Council, Government Executive Media Group’s research arm. About 14 percent of respondents said they would definitely consider leaving federal service under President Trump, while an additional 11 percent said they might. The findings indicate those leaving government would come from agencies' top ranks, as a majority of respondents were in General Schedule positions GS-13 and higher.

Salaries of federal employees continue to lag behind those of similar private-sector jobs by 35 percent on average, an advisory committee has said in presenting what amounts to the latest data point in a long-running debate over how the two sectors compare. The 34.92 percent "pay gap" reported Friday essentially duplicates the 35.37 and 35.28 percent numbers reported the last two years by the Federal Salary Council and is close to those of other recent years.... Under a 1990 law, the numbers are supposed to be used to virtually close the measured differences with private-sector pay. However, no administration or...

The U.S. government has not yet notified any of the 21.5 million federal employees and contractors whose security clearance data was hacked more than three months ago, officials acknowledged on Tuesday. The agency whose data was hacked, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), said the Defense Department will begin "later this month" to notify employees and contractors across the government that their personal information was accessed by hackers. OPM said notifications would continue over several weeks and "will be sent directly to impacted individuals." OPM also announced that it hired a contractor to help protect the identities and credit ratings...

As FDR believed they should be, and as they were before 1962. I know that some of you are going to call this an attention-getting stunt because Walker is struggling in the polls. Here’s my response to that: A guy who’s running for president should seek success in the polls by making solid, serious policy proposals. That’s what this is. And if anyone thinks he’s not serious, they don’t know Walker’s governing history. He understands like few governors how the cycle of corruption works between public-employee unions and Democrats: Unions fund Democrat candidates, who, once elected, offer generous compensation packages...

A friend just got a letter from the United States Office of Personnel Management indicating his personal information may have been compromised. He hasn't worked for the Federal government since about 1985. This seems to indicate they may have gotten almost everything on everyone. The letter also offers some kind of protection in case of identity theft.

The government is taking action to curb the long-maligned practice of putting federal employees on paid leave for months — and even years — while they wait to be punished for misbehavior or cleared and allowed to return to the office. In a memo last week, Office of Personnel Management director Katherine Archuleta told agency heads that the extensive use of administrative leave throughout government should be just the opposite: a “temporary solution,” only for problem employees who pose a danger to themselves or their colleagues. In other words, if someone poses a threat to his own safety or the...

Federal employees owed more in delinquent taxes last year than any year in the past decade, costing the Internal Revenue Service $1.4 billion in 2014. The 113,805 civilian government employees who declined to pay all of their taxes last year would be ineligible to work for federal agencies under a House bill introduced last week that would hold officials accountable for evading taxes. ... It is disconcerting that federal civilian employees owe more than one billion dollars in back taxes," said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. "These employees are not exempt from...

Six years after candidate Barack Obama vowed to make working for government “cool again,” federal hiring of young people is instead tailing off and many millennials are heading for the door. The share of the federal workforce under the age of 30 dropped to 7 percent this year, the lowest figure in nearly a decade, government figures show. With agencies starved for digital expertise and thousands of federal jobs coming open because of a wave of baby-boomer retirements, top government officials, including at the White House, are growing increasingly distressed about the dwindling role played by young workers. “Millennials are

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AFGE president says reaction to Michael Brown shooting reflects larger civil rights struggle WASHINGTON – American Federation of Government Employees National President J. David Cox Sr. today issued the following statement:“In the days since Michael Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson, Missouri, there has been an outpouring of anger and grief across the nation. My own reaction is simultaneously one of deep sympathy for his family, a prayer that the justice system works so that a fair investigation and adjudication occur, and an understanding of the righteous anger felt by members of his community who have...

The White House says President Barack Obama will propose a 1 percent pay raise next year for federal workers.

Work: A new study of government data says that since Oct. 1, federal workers, including bureaucrats and members of Congress, have worked less than three-fourths of the time. To which we respond, how can they tell? Federal workers have long been seen as slack, but they seem to have gotten more so recently.

**SNIP** Democrats were also pleased by Obama’s executive order raising the minimum wage for several hundred thousand federal workers, which plays into their drive to raise the wage nationally to $10.10 per hour. House Republicans are opposed to such a move. And Pelosi and her top lieutenants — many of whom played big roles in the 2010 passage of the Affordable Care Act — were very happy to hear that more one million Americans had signed up for state and federal health exchanges during January, bringing the total Obamacare sign ups to 3.3 million. So while most House Republicans believe...

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) challenged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to publically explain why he has exempted some of his leadership staff from enrolling in the ObamaCare health insurance exchange. “I think it’s incumbent on the distinguished majority leader to come clean,” Vitter said on the Senate floor Tuesday. Reports came out last week that Reid would allow his leadership staff to remain on the federal healthcare plan instead of forcing them onto the exchanges, as required for other congressional staffers. He was the only member of leadership to announce such a move. The Affordable Care Act, also known...

If government employees can enjoy a stay in a luxury hotel made famous on The Bachelor, then surely Congress could find somewhere to make spending cuts. In November, a group of federal government employees connected with the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force enjoyed a trip to St. Croix, courtesy of taxpayers. Though no reports of long bar tabs and souvenir receipts have surfaced—as what happened when the General Services Administration held a conference in Las Vegas—a few details have raised eyebrows. Government employees stayed in the Buccaneer Hotel, a beachfront resort made famous by the television show The Bachelor....

Members of Congress who have gone along with the idea that they should get insurance through Obamacare’s system of exchanges are getting a stronger dose of medicine than they bargained for. Most of the national attention has focused on the trouble with the federal HealthCare.gov portal, but for members and staff, glitches with DC Health Link are personal. Dec. 9 is the deadline for employees moving from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program to the new health insurance exchange to make coverage choices for 2014. However, an email sent to staffers Friday said that those who can prove they tried...

Regular readers know I complain about the army of overpaid bureaucrats in Washington, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The larger problem is that Washington also is filled with hundreds of thousands of other people who get rich thanks to big government. And these politicians, lobbyists, crony capitalists, interest groups, contractors, and influence peddlers almost surely are a bigger net drain on the economy’s productive sector. When you combine the official bureaucracy with these other over-compensated beneficiaries of big government, it’s easy to understand why Washington, DC, is now the richest region of America, with 10 of the...

Lake Mead Property Owners forced Out Until Shutdown Ends Las Vegas, NV (KTNV) -- The government shutdown is being felt close to home for some locals. They say they're being forced out of private homes on Lake Mead because they sit on federal land. Joyce Spencer is 77-years-old and her husband Ralph is 80. They've been spending most of their time in the family ice cream store since going home isn't an option. The Spencers never expected to be forced out of their Lake Mead home, which they've owned since the 70s, but on Thursday, a park ranger said they...