NASA Budgetary Analysis

Payroll Forecast

As with any massive bureaucratic entity in which thousands of employees work collaboratively on hundreds of individual projects, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) devotes a healthy percentage of its annual budget to maintaining its permanent and temporary workforce. With an annual operating budget of approximately $17.8 billion for fiscal year 2013, calculating the exact amount paid as compensation to employees is a difficult prospect, but using conservative estimates which take into account budget items like Space Operations ($4 billion) and Cross-Agency Support ($2.8 billion), it is likely that NASA spends well in excess of $12 billion per year on salaries, pensions, and other employee-generated costs. This figure aligns with previous estimates made by NASA in fiscal year 2006, when the agency stated in its annual NASA Office of the Inspector General budget request that

"82.7% of the proposed budget is dedicated to personnel...
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