I love this idea! I'm a Fed and would prefer to live in a more affordable city closer to home. I am constantly conflicted by the choice of doing important and interesting work in my field vs. raising my children near family. I would love to not have to make those trade-offs.

If so many federal employees weren't crammed into DC, cost of living here would go down too. It would be great if whole departments could just move elsewhere... how much do the Secretaries really need to be physically in DC anyway? They can just hop on a plane for Cabinet meetings or meetings at the White House. It probably wouldn't be that often, right?

As a taxpayer, I love the idea of relocating some government functions to less expensive locales. It would also open up federal employment to whole new geographic areas, which could allow the government to get better employees (if they fixed their messed up hiring system).

I don't think it will happen, but it's absolutely worth exploring.

I would love it if my job moved out of the DC area, even if it moved to a state I wouldn't normally choose to live in. I could absorb the pay cut to live somewhere less congested and, hopefully, with better weather. I hate the commute here, and the fact that traffic congestion dictates pretty much everything about my life (even though I Metro!).

This has already happened to some extent -- most of the HR and IT people for my headquarters office are located in the midwest -- but I don't really expect it to ever happen for the headquarters elements. Too bad.

Anonymous



California has about 172,000 federal jobs, but the federal workforce in the DC metro area -- with about half a million or more (by now, that is a 2011 estimate) -- dwarfs even more populous regions (like CA).

Ca has 334k, va 294k, md 278k, tx 253k, fl 175k, etc
http://www.theyworkforus.org/documents/FedEmployeesStats.pdf

Anonymous wrote:For me personally, although I am deeply committed to my job and my agency's mission, I would not move for my job at this time. I have 90-year-old ILs here who need looking after and kids in middle and high school who I would be reluctant to move. My spouse is a teacher and theoretically could relocate fairly easily, but it's not always easy for older teachers to get new jobs and at any rate with 20 years tenure at this point it would be absolutely foolish to leave our state's retirement system. If my agency relocated, I would likely try to find a private sector job in this area.

^^sorry, hit post too soon. I meant to add: the (much) higher pay I would make in the private sector would (help) make up for the reduction in federal retirement benefits following early retirement.

For me personally, although I am deeply committed to my job and my agency's mission, I would not move for my job at this time. I have 90-year-old ILs here who need looking after and kids in middle and high school who I would be reluctant to move. My spouse is a teacher and theoretically could relocate fairly easily, but it's not always easy for older teachers to get new jobs and at any rate with 20 years tenure at this point it would be absolutely foolish to leave our state's retirement system. If my agency relocated, I would likely try to find a private sector job in this area.

Anonymous wrote:OP, I think you have no evidence that this is anything more than idle chatter.

Quite to the contrary, this is being seriously discussed as a way to disseminate federal jobs and influence to other regions, particularly those well-represented.

This has already happened in my industry. Lots of jobs have moved to Berkeley WVa, Charleston SC, Denver CO, Oklahoma City OK, Kansas City MO. I don't want to leave DC because I was born and raised here.

Anonymous wrote:California has about 172,000 federal jobs, but the federal workforce in the DC metro area -- with about half a million or more (by now, that is a 2011 estimate) -- dwarfs even more populous regions (like CA).

Fed population has not been increasing.

I would love it, but I think it would be hard to move HQ policy and staff functions (such as the General Counsel, Operations Director) out of DC because the Secretary has to be in DC for daily business. At my agency, a number of HR functions are done by people in the field offices. The future I see is more field offices with smaller presences because more people will be teleworking most days. My agency started letting a lot of field people telework and then reduced the sizes of the offices -- reducing their rent. The field uses the "hotel" office model (you take a free office when you have to come to the office).

My only fear would be that we will end up in places represented by senior members and I don't want to live in W. Va., Nev. or Ohio.

OP, I think you have no evidence that this is anything more than idle chatter.

Anonymous wrote:The OPM cost of living chart deliberately includes Baltimore and West VA in the DC metro area as a way to deflate local fed wages. It is not really fairly calculated-it is set up that way to save money.

Thank goodness, because otherwise it would become prohibitively expensive to maintain all those government functions here. Either a slightly-skewed OPM COL calculus, or else move those jobs to West Virginia, Alabama, Idaho, Minnesota, and Montana.

Anonymous wrote:Feds don't like it but many would move for their jobs. They prefer to have "face-time" with others in Washington. I think a department move elsewhere is usually shortsighted. In addition, there is value to having agencies easily identifiable to visitors to Washington ~ they walk down the mall, they see the name on the building "The Department of Agriculture", "The Department of Housing and Urban Development" It is their federal city.

Alas, many Americans will have neither the time, means, nor priority to visit Washington, DC, in their lifetime. In that sense, they would be better served by seeing that the "Department of Education" is located in their home state, or that the "Department of Housing and Urban Development" is only a three-hours drive from their hometown.

People will only prefer "face-time" with others in Washington if they perceive that government power, wealth, influence, and spending continues to grow, aggregate, and amass in the Washington, DC area, as it has by leaps and bounds in the past 25 years. If you disperse this region's concentration of power and influence and policymaking to the different parts of our country, then federal employees will be happy to serve and work there -- seeing no one place as the most important, elite, or worthy of their "face time" -- which is as it should be.

The OPM cost of living chart deliberately includes Baltimore and West VA in the DC metro area as a way to deflate local fed wages. It is not really fairly calculated-it is set up that way to save money.

Feds don't like it but many would move for their jobs. They prefer to have "face-time" with others in Washington. I think a department move elsewhere is usually shortsighted. In addition, there is value to having agencies easily identifiable to visitors to Washington ~ they walk down the mall, they see the name on the building "The Department of Agriculture", "The Department of Housing and Urban Development" It is their federal city.

I always thought rank was relative -- in DC, a colonel or a GS-13 gets your coffee; in the provinces, a colonel or a GS-13 are almost at God level.