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Alison Leigh Cowan of the New York Times investigates Standard Form 152, the form that allows federal bureaucrats to create new forms. Apparently it’s being used a lot these days:

Last year, Americans spent nearly 10 billion hours [pdf] filling out more than 8,000 different government forms and other official requests for information tracked by the federal budget office. That compares with roughly one billion hours spent on similar paperwork in 1981, which in hindsight looks to have been a refreshingly uncomplicated time.

Sounds grim.  But there’s some slightly good news: according the to the linked CRS report, about 80% of all those hours are dedicated to tax forms.  Aside from taxes, all that remains is about 2 billion hours of form-filling nirvana, and I’m willing to bet that 80% of that is incurred by compliance officers and other paid professionals.  That leaves only about 400 million hours for us ordinary citizens, which works out to about two hours per year per adult.

So once you do your taxes you only have about two additional hours of government form filling out to do each year.  To be honest, that’s less than I would have guessed — but that’s probably because I’ve been fooled by the fantastic increase in private sector forms that make up the unseen superstructure of the internet age.  Here’s my guess for me personally: one hour spent filling out government forms in 2008 (an accountant does our taxes) and, oh, let’s say 10,000 hours spent filling out various annoying and idiotically designed online forms that allow me to buy things, access sites, write blog comments, take stupid quizzes, and order new services that allow me to continue living my convenient 21st century net-centric life.

OK, maybe not 10,000 hours.  But I wouldn’t be surprised if I spend 30-40 hours a year filling out various online forms for one thing or another.  How about you?

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

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