Do Americans spend 9.14 billion hours on government paperwork every year? Cass R. Sunstein, a former head of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and the author, most recently, of "Simpler: The Future of Government.", has made this claim (The New York Times): > It is measured not in the millions of hours, but in the billions - 9.14 of them, to be exact. Suppose that we value one hour at $20 (a conservative estimate). If so, the government imposes an annual reporting cost of more than $180 billion on the American people. Is it true that 9.14 billion hours are spent by Americans on government paperwork every year?

The Office of Information and Budget has presented that number as their _estimate_ for 2011. See their report: _Information Collection Budget for FY 2011_ (page 2, and throughout).

> According to agency estimates of paperwork burden in FY 2011, the public spent 9.14 billion hours responding to or complying with Federal information collections.