Government Employment In Most States Is Above 15%

The number of government employees in Washington DC is 38% when all federal, state, and local workers are taken into account. That is really no surprise. Most of the people are on the US payroll.

It is surprising that in most states more than 15% of people work for the government. More that a quarter of people employed are government workers in Alaska, Virginia, and Maryland. The problem with the statistic is represents are huge pool of workers who could lose their jobs as austerity measures are implemented in many cities and state like California where budget deficits have led to huge layoffs. The numbers are so large that as governments “downsize”, the national jobless rate could be pushed up.

California has already laid off thousands of its workers and many others have had their pay cut. Those factors almost certainly hurt the state’s economy and undermines consumption. Other pockets of extreme austerity can be found in cities, especially in Florida, Michigan, and Nevada where local tax receipts have plunged.

Another troubling aspect to the portion of people who work at various levels of government is that a number of states and cities have under-funded pensions, which could cause benefit cutbacks for people who retire in the future. The U.S. Postal Service is the nation’s top federal employer, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, accounting for 23% of government jobs across the country. It is well-known that the quasi-government operation lost $3.5 billion in the last quarter and that it will almost have to cut back service.

The military is another huge employer across that country, particularly in states with large military bases

TA recent Gallup poll also found that “Other federal government jobs likely to be geographically dispersed include work in the U.S. justice system, agriculture, homeland security, transportation, and the administration of health services, such as Medicare and Medicaid.”

The data raises the question of has government grown to the point where it has become a huge burden on the tax base. There has been an argument between Democrats and Republicans for decades about whether the government should be an intrusive factor in American daily life or whether budgets for federal, state, and local activity cause high taxes.

For the time being, it would appear that the philosophy of large government is alive and well, at least in terms of the massive numbers of people who collect pay checks outside of private enterprise.

Methodology: Results are based on telephone interviews conducted as part of Gallup Daily tracking Jan. 1- June 30, 2010, with a random sample of 98,755 adults employed full- or part-time, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, selected using random-digit-dial sampling.

Douglas A. McIntyre