A USA Today report by Dennis Cauchon out this morning shows that federal employees were fired at rate of 0.55 percent during the last year budget year. That means that only 11,668 of the U.S. government's 2.1 million person nonmilitary and non-Postal Service workforce were shown the door. The private-sector, for comparison, fires 3 percent of workers annually.

What this low firing rate means is that at 16 or so federal agencies, deaths outnumber firings and employees are more likely to kick the bucket than get canned. For example, the Small Business Administration, with 4,000 workers, had six firings and 17 deaths. There are also more deaths than firings at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and Environment Protection Agency. Two other government agencies--the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, which together employ roughly 3,000 people--didn't fire a single worker during the year analyzed by USA Today. Talk about job security.

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