Report: Contractors Outnumber Civil Servants 5.5-1 The number of contractors working for the federal government climbed by 48% between 2002 and 2005, according to a report titled “The True Size of Government.” The Bush administration “has overseen the most significant increase in recent history in the largely hidden workforce of contractors and grantees who work for the federal government,” the study’s author, New York University government professor Paul Light, wrote. Light said almost all the recent growth in contract workers can be attributed to the war on terrorism. Light has been tracking the government and contractor workforce for years. He cautions that his figures for contractors are only estimates because neither the government nor contractors keep a head count, but he says the trends are unmistakable. “The federal government often uses contractors and grantees to provide talent it cannot recruit, specialized services it cannot produce, competition it cannot generate among its own organizations, and equipment that it cannot and should not build itself,” he wrote. The critical question for policymakers, he added, is whether the government is adequately monitoring contractor performance. Light does not criticize the use of contractors, but he says it allows federal officials to hide the true size of government, “thereby creating the illusion that it [is] smaller than it actually is.” He added, “It hardly matters who produces the goods and services as long a the federal government is honest with the public about the true cost of delivering on the promises it makes.” He estimated the true size of the government workforce in 2005 at 14.6 million, including civil servants, military personnel, postal workers, contractors and grantees, up from 12.1 million in 2002. In that period the size of the civil service inched up and postal employment fell. He estimated there are 5.5 contractor and grantee employees for every civil servant. The report is available at www.nyu.edu/wagner.