As the incoming Trump administration prepares to confront China's growing global influence, it is imperative to base strategies on accurate assessments of domestic capabilities.

Recent narratives, such as those propagated by conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, suggest that a vast majority of federal employees are teleworking and doing as little work as possible, thereby undermining government efficiency. These assertions not only misrepresent the reality of federal telework, but they also risk weakening our nation's position in its strategic competition with China.

Kirk's that federal employees are overwhelmingly teleworking — and that this practice represents a "looting operation" at the taxpayers' expense — is a double-falsehood, emblematic of a broader misunderstanding about the realities of remote work in government.

Kirk's assertion, shared widely on X, falsely suggests that 85 percent of federal workers work from home and report to an office only once a month. When one of his followers posted “I read this as 85 percent of the federal workforce is completely unnecessary and needs to be terminated immediately,” Kirk responded “Sounds like an efficient take.”

This matches the sentiments of former presidential candidate and co-chair of the Department of Government Efficiency Vivek Ramaswamy, who said that one idea to cut federal bureaucracy is to force workers out of remote work and back to the office.

Yet recent data from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office dismantles these misconceptions, painting a far different picture. By the end of 2022, only 22 percent of federal employees typically teleworked, according to the CBO report. This figure is notably lower than the 25 percent of private-sector employees who worked remotely during the same period.

The data directly contradict the notion that federal employees have adopted telework practices at a greater rate than their private-sector peers. Acting Director of the Office of Personnel........

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