Notes On Government Employment

Paul Krugman


I see that my various posts on government employment have brought out a variety of complaints — OK, there was a temporary spike from the Census that’s being misused, but isn’t there an upward trend, isn’t that a bad thing, etc..

So, a few points.

First, what we’ve seen under Obama is a small rise in federal employment, swamped by a larger fall in state and local employment — reflecting the budget woes of the states, and the inadequacy of federal aid in the slump. So you see a small rise if you look only at the feds, but a decline if you look at the overall picture.

Second, most government workers are at the local level, and most of the rest are state workers; the federal government is a small piece of the total. And if you look at what they do, a lot of them are teachers; many of the rest are firefighters, police, and other occupations we sort of like.

(Original here.)

You have read this article with the title Notes On Government Employment. You can bookmark this page URL https://ogbcommunity.blogspot.com/2010/12/notes-on-government-employment.html. Thanks!