The total cost of federal employee salaries and benefits reached a new high of $67 billion in the past year, says Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux, marking a 68 percent increase from $40.2 billion in 2016.
Mr. Giroux highlighted the growth in payroll costs in a Feb. 22 report titled “Supplementary Estimates (C),” as first covered by Blacklock’s Reporter. The report said the costs have been expanding at an average rate of 9 percent annually alongside an expansion of the federal workforce, with 428,000 employees in the last year compared to 340,461 in 2016.
