EDITORIAL: Time for federal workers to get back on the job

Nearly 18 months into the pandemic and most businesses have learned to adjust, particularly when it comes to those that depend on face-to-face interaction with customers. Unfortunately, the federal government remains an exception.

Public officials have, for the most part, lifted the draconian economic restrictions imposed last year to control the spread of the coronavirus. Businesses that survived the prolonged shutdowns have returned to some semblance of normalcy thanks to the availability of effective vaccines. So why are parts of the federal government still operating as if it were April 2020?

For instance, Eric Boehm of reason.com reported last week that many of the 1,200 Social Security field offices around the country remain shuttered, making it difficult for anyone to do business with an agency responsible for mailing out checks to millions of Americans. The result has been a nightmare for those who must interact with the Social Security bureaucracy.

“A July report from the Office of the Inspector General for the Social Security Administration found massive backlogs at the 73 facilities visited by auditors,” Mr. Boehm noted. “One service center ‘had more than 9,000 unprocessed original documents it had received as early as November 2020.’ ”

The Social Security office in Las Vegas is among those that remain closed. It is open only via appointments involving “pressing cases.” Translation: Good luck.

To make matters worse, this massive bureaucracy is not set up to operate remotely, meaning that most business must be conducted in-person and involves copious paperwork.

Similar backlogs have been reported with the State Department regarding passports. The Associated Press reports that it now takes up to five months for the government to process routine passport applications — all because so many federal workers remain off the job because of COVID.

The Biden administration needs a heightened sense of urgency when it comes to getting federal workers back into the office. Vaccines should allow for the safe return of many employees. If the administration must stand up to the federal employee unions, so be it.

“There are parts of the federal government that people must interact with if they want to work a legal job or cross an international border,” Mr. Boehm writes. Indeed, in many cases “average Americans have no choice but to deal with the hassle of bureaucracy.”

Slow-playing a return to business as usual for the federal workforce creates hardships and inconvenience. The taxpayers who pay the salaries of those government employees deserve better.