It should come as a surprise to absolutely no one that according to a report released just this week by the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the number of people now employed by government in Washington, D.C., has once again increased in the month of July. This little act governmental expansion happened at exactly the very same time that the overall unemployment rate rose in the District of Columbia as well as in 28 of the 50 states. Now according to this report, in June there were 245,700 people employed by government in Washington, D.C., by the end of July, that number had risen to 247,000, or a net increase of 1,300. This included both those employed by the federal government as well as those employed by the government of the District of Columbia. So it is then that with the arrival of Barry “Almighty” onto the scene, I think it very safe to say that the era of big government can be said to have officially returned, and with somewhat of a vengeance. And it comes to us now in the form of the largest federal work force in modern history. The number of those employed by the federal government now tops out at over 2 million for the first time since President “BJ” Clinton declared that “the era of big government is over” and joined forces with a Republican-led Congress in the 1990s to pare back the federal work force. Most of the increases are on the civilian side, which grew to over 1.4million people, in fiscal 2010. This massive expansion of the federal bureaucracy provides plenty of ammunition to those who wish to argue that the government is too big, too intrusive and is trying to do too much under President Barack Hussein Obama.
Theoretically, the number of Americans employed by governments nationwide declined by 37,000 during July, at least according to another BLS report published earlier this month. But, at the same time, according to that same report, the number of people employed by the “federal” government (not counting the Postal Service) actually “increased” by 2,000. That said, the total decline in government workers nationwide was the result of a decline of state and local government workers in some states, plus a decline of 400 employees at the Postal Service. Still, nationwide more than 22 million people continue to work for government at one level or another. Yes, that’s right folks, 22 MILLION, or roughly one in fourteen of us! That would be 22 million public union employees, employees for whom we the taxpayers are responsible for the funding of their rather extravagant pay and benefits packages. Those packages, which are, on average, twice as high for these public employees as it is for those of us out in the private sector who are responsible for picking up the tab. Since Barry “Almighty” was sworn into office, the private sector workforce has effectively shrunk by more than 2.6 %, shedding some 2.9 million jobs. During that same period of time, however, the federal workforce (excluding Census and Postal workers) has grown by over 7%. And then it was in his FY 2012 budget, that Barry proposed adding even more people to the federal payroll. Specifically, Barry wanted to create and additional 15,000 federal jobs including 4,182 additional IRS employees, 1,054 of which will be needed to implement Obamacare. The problem with all these additional government jobs is that government spending does not create the economic growth needed to sustain private sector job growth.
Ironically, at the same time that the number of people employed by federal and local government agencies situated within the District of Columbia increased during July, the overall unemployment rate among people who people who actually reside in the district actually went up. According to the BLS, this is due in part because some of the people employed by government in D.C., commute from Maryland and Virginia—and their jobs are used in BLS calculations to determine the unemployment rates in the states in which they reside, not where they work. This is the typical creative style of government “fuzzy” math. Meanwhile, the overall number of D.C. “residents” who are employed has declined every month since February, while the number of D.C. residents who are unemployed has increased, according to data published by BLS. In February, the total number of D.C. residents employed was 302,678. That dropped to 295,377 in July. In February, the total number of unemployed D.C. residents was 31,611. That rose to 35,861 in July. The unemployment rate among D.C. residents rose from 9.5 percent in February to 10.4 percent in June and then to 10.8 percent in July. A majority of the 50 states—28 of them--joined D.C. in seeing their unemployment rates go up in July. (See list below.) At the same time, even while overall employment by government declined nationwide during July, 16 states did join D.C. in bucking the trend and increasing the number of people employed by government within their borders during the month. (See list below.)
16 States and D.C. With Increased Gov’t Employees in July:
State People Employed by Government June and July
June July
Delaware 62,600 63,100
District of Columbia 245,700 247,000
Hawaii 123,600 125,500
Idaho 117,700 118,600
Iowa 246,100 251,200
Kansas 254,000 258,300
Massachusetts 431,100 432,200
Michigan 620,400 632,400
Mississippi 243,200 244,700
Nebraska 165,400 167,100
New York 1,472,000 1,487,300
Oklahoma 338,100 339,400
Rhode Island 60,100 60,400
Tennessee 410,800 418,000
Utah 215,100 215,200
Washington 534,700 540,000
Wisconsin 416,700 421,000
28 States and D.C. With Increased Unemployment in July:
State Unemployment Rate
June July
Alabama 9.9 10.0
Alaska 7.5 7.7
Arizona 9.3 9.4
Arkansas 8.1 8.2
California 11.8 12.0
Delaware 8.0 8.1
District of Columbia 10.4 10.8
Georgia 9.9 10.1
Hawaii 6.0 6.1
Illinois 9.1 9.5
Indiana 8.3 8.5
Maryland 7.0 7.2
Michigan 10.5 10.9
Minnesota 6.8 6.2
Montana 7.5 7.7
Nevada 12.4 12.9
New Hampshire 4.9 5.2
North Carolina 9.9 10.1
North Dakota 3.2 3.3
Ohio 8.8 9.0
Oklahoma 5.4 5.5
Oregon 9.4 9.5
Pennsylvania 7.6 7.8
South Carolina 10.5 10.9
Texas 8.2 8.4
Utah 7.4 7.5
Vermont 5.5 5.7
Virginia 6.0 6.1
Wisconsin 7.6 7.8
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