[walljm]

6% seems suspect. I would expect it to be higher... at least in the 20% to 30% range. Do you have a source?

[Jtsummers]

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60235#:~:text=In%20fiscal%20...

FY 2022 spending was around $6.75 trillion, civilian pay was $271 billion, or around 4% of the spending for that year. You'll find the numbers have been hovering around 4-5% for quite a while.

[walljm]

Ah, ok. Thank you. If you add in the 2.7% for military personel (which doesn't seem to be included here) then you get to about 6-7% of total spending.

[toyg]

That actually looks par for the course in "western" governments. The only items going over 20% are typically related to pensions, social security, and health services. Everything else (in isolation) is basically a pittance.

[jhedwards]

Sure, here's two: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60235

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/is-government-too-big-ref...

Every publication I've looked at has the overall spending for federal employee salaries as around 280 billion. The total budget is around 6 trillion.