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Recently, a prominent good government group released its first batch of rankings stemming from its analysis of the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. The Partnership For Public Service found that some of the best performing agencies experienced a decline in employee morale in 2022 after a small uptick over the past few years.

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Last August, Congress enacted the Inflation Reduction Act, which included billions of dollars for IRS modernization. Last week, the tax agency released "Internal Revenue Service Inflation Reduction Act Strategic Operating Plan," outlining the ways that the agency plans to use the money, including hiring thousands, upgrading capacity and other changes.

GovExec reporter Eric Katz is covering the IRS. He joined the podcast to analyze what's in the strategic plan and how it will affect the agency.

The years of the COVID-19 pandemic have taken their toll on American institutions, including the public health infrastructure tasked with dealing with the pandemic. The media and information ecosystems brought forward a lot of incorrect information that have contributed to dangerous myths that remain today about vaccine safety, the virus and public health.

Feng Hao is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of South Florida, where one of his areas of research is the COVID-19 pandemic response in the U.S. He is one of the lead researchers of a new study from USF on American attitudes toward COVID-19. He joined the podcast to discuss the survey.

It seems almost too obvious to say, but inadequate employment levels play a huge role in poverty levels of communities. In a time of staggeringly disparate economic indicators in the pandemic-era United States, the question of low unemployment rates demands further examination. Our guests today have co-authored a forthcoming book that explores just this topic and more. Coming in April, Moving The Needle: What Tight Labor Markets Do for the Poor looks at what happens when jobs are ample, but workers are harder to find.

Katherine S. Newman is Provost and Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs at the University of California. She is the author of fourteen books. And Elisabeth S. Jacobs is Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute and cofounder of WorkRise, for which she serves as deputy director. They are the authors of Moving The Needle and they joined the podcast to discuss the book and tight labor markets.

Governmentwide DEI efforts have faced a fair amount of criticism and such programs at the Defense Department are no different. Critics of DEI – often using the term "woke" – have most recently tied it to military recruiting and readiness concerns at the Pentagon, though officials dispute those claims.

Kevin Baron is Executive Editor at GovExec sibling site Defense One. He joined the podcast to discuss readiness and DEI efforts at the Pentagon.

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Nearly anyone who has dealt with it agrees that the federal hiring process is broken. Years of court fights, legislative fixes and special interests have produced a hiring system that frustrates hiring managers and applicants alike. There may be ways, however, to modernize the hiring process.

Angela Bailey and Jeffrey Neal are both former Chief Human Capital Officers for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, as well as current fellows of the National Academy of Public Administration. They're also co-authors on the latest in a series of posts on GovExec addressing the challenges that face government modernization, "The Federal Government Can Expand Opportunities for Veterans and Simplify Hiring, Too." They joined the podcast to discuss veterans preference, hiring and how the two things can intersect to further workforce modernization.

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Americans have to fill out various forms and enlist accountants or software like TurboTax or H&R Block. The time tax – as Professor Donald Moynihan has noted – that Americans spend on doing taxes is an administrative burden in and of itself and non-IRS software or online options are only free to a point.

Anna Massoglia is OpenSecrets' Editorial and Investigations Manager, where she researches the influence on money in government and politics. As part of our #moneyMonday series, she joined the podcast to talk about the influence of private industry money on the administrative burdens that Americans face while dealing with the IRS.

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Since its introduction to the American market five years ago, concerns about video sharing app TikTok have been constant. The spotlight on massively popular mobile application has culminated in TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifying in front of Congress last week.

Tom Guarente is VP of external and Government Affairs at Armis, a FedRAMP certified asset-management platform. He joins me now to discuss the current discourse around Tiktok.

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The world is changing rapidly, with government having to face new crises with different and more innovative solutions. COVID-19 has changed the work landscape and the ways that Americans relate to work, but government challenges remain, even as boundaries fade. A new report by Deloitte outlines more trends that agencies must adjust to, in order to better face the coming years.

William D. Eggers is the executive director of Deloitte's Center for Government Insights, where he is responsible for the firm's public sector thought leadership. He's also one of the co-authors of the Deloitte report titled Government Trends 2023. He joined the podcast to discuss the report.

As with many things in the federal government the systems by which documents are classified could use some tweaks. Modernizing the classification is overdue, from the overclassification problem to the funding of agencies tasked with administering the system to the ways penalties are brought down for running afoul of the rules. Two members of the House last week introduced a bill to shore up part of the system, including increasing civil penalties for those who mishandle classified information.

Courtney Bublé joined the podcast to talk about the ways to fix the classification system.

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