By Scott Kupor, Director, U.S. Office of Personnel Management
March 6, 2026

“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.” – Jacob Riis

The American workforce possesses an unmatched combination of productivity, dynamism, and skill. Yet only a very small minority of these individuals decide that a career in federal service is their calling; the federal workforce comprises less than 2% of the overall U.S. workforce. One reason for this is that we have created a false dichotomy: choose a career in federal service or one in the private sector, but ne’er shall the two meet. This approach denies the American people access to the full talents of the U.S. workforce, failing to value the benefits that accrue to the government when we tap into the diverse job experiences of the other 98% of the workforce who choose to work elsewhere. It’s hard enough to compete for great talent given the vast options available to the American worker, but when we self-impose unnecessary constraints, it becomes a Sisyphean task: pushing an immense boulder up a hill, only for it to roll back down again.

OPM is trying everything at its disposal to tap into the entire pool of the American talent. For example, under President Trump’s leadership we have prioritized merit-based hiring, ending all racial discrimination, reducing time to hire, eliminating degree and work experience requirements, and making our best pitch by Making Government Cool Again.

Today, we turn our gaze where the vast majority of the workforce resides: the private sector. For too long, the federal government has erected unnecessary barriers, widening a chasm between the public and private sectors and discouraging some of our most productive citizens from public service. Our recently announced Tech Force and NASA Force initiatives will bridge this gap by creating structured pathways for private sector professionals to take temporary leave from their employers and accept term appointments in government to help us achieve critical goals: modernizing our technology and returning us to the Moon. We must do more.

To further pave this pathway, our most recent strike took aim at a little-discussed ethics statute, 18 U.S.C. § 209, colloquially known as the “outside income bar.” This criminal statute generally bans federal employees from receiving outside compensation for their government service, an understandable policy since federal employees should serve the American people, not outside interests.

We first encountered this statute when developing our Tech Force initiative because it was cited as a key obstacle for attracting private-sector talent for term appointments: would any individual taking temporary leave from the private sector need to forfeit or restructure their deferred compensation if its vesting during the period of government service would be deemed to violate the statute?

While this may all sound wonky, it presented an existential challenge. Deferred compensation (such as restricted stock units) is ubiquitous in today’s labor market. Nearly anyone the federal government would seek to recruit from the private sector for Tech Force and similar private-public exchange programs would have substantial deferred compensation – forfeiting it would be unworkable and restructuring it would be complex.

So, instead of accepting defeat, we asked “why“?

A core element of § 209 is that the compensation must be for government service. Why should the incidental vesting of deferred compensation earned in prior years be treated as payment for government service? A common sense application of the statute should conclude that previously earned deferred compensation, vesting according to its original terms, is not compensation linked to the government service, therefore not satisfying a key element of the statute.

And this week, our partners at the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice issued an opinion clarifying that the vesting of previously-earned deferred compensation during government service does not, as a facial matter, violate 18 U.S.C. § 209. In sum, analyzing whether six key factors indicate an intentional, direct link between the compensation and the government service, OLC concluded that, in general, the receipt of such deferred compensation is permissible (though I encourage you to read the full opinion!).

This opinion is a modest, but powerful step for two key reasons.

First, it is binding on the executive branch, providing companies, individuals, and agencies assurance they can proceed confidently within the law. Second, it creates new flexibility across government to design programs that attract private-sector talent for term appointments (please read footnote 4!). Tech Force is seeking technologists. NASA Force is seeking aerospace engineers. And in the near future, you should expect OPM to advance additional exchange programs that strengthen the federal government’s ability to attract top talent.

No single swing will solve every challenge the federal workforce faces, but persistent, steady strikes will yield non-linear progress. At OPM we will continue to “pound the rock!”