Government Employment

Falling government employment is reducing the US GDP growth rate and prolonging the recession. A better idea is to keep level government payrolls while reducing military spending and provided support for workers making the military to civilian transition. I another idea is to time the reduction to when the economy is better.

The chart below shows total government employment for the federal, state and local governments combined.



The next chart show the split between the three types of government employment during the same period: Total, Federal, State and Local



One of the interesting things to note is that the huge decrease in government employment is entirely at the local level. That spending is used for education(teachers), police and fire protection. The federal government employment is flat, the state is down about 100K and local is down 500K. So basically all the job losses have come from state and local governments.

Another note: I have not figured out how to count contractors in government employment.