Jedediah Bila and Government Employment

Saw Jedediah Bila speaking with Stuart Varney on Fox yesterday (17 Oct 2013) and really appreciated her energy, passion, and articulateness. When she talked about government employment trends, I wondered if a little more data could help and found this analysis by Dennis Sevakis - http://constitutionalley.us/2011/09/10/the-incredible-shrinking-federal-workforce-not-so-fast/ - which features an extensive quantitative analysis of government employment rates.

(Government Employment in thousands, 

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USGOVT?cid=32325) 

The analysis runs from 1940 to 2010 and features several breakouts and perspectives. While the government employment growth remains steady with retrenchment primarily after 1940 (post WWII) and 1980 (major recession) over the analysis, between 2000 and 2008 government employment has been very much in a growth mode. Most interesting is Sevakis' last paragraph, which I quote in its entirety:

"From a political standpoint, what I find most interesting is the recent rise in the percentage of government workers. After peaking in the mid-seventies, the percentage of government workers generally declined for the following 25 years. For the last 10 years, since the beginning of the Bush II administration, that trend has reversed and been upward overall. So, when I hear comments about the Obama Administration being merely a continuation of Bush policies, s’pose I should concur. That troubles me. Not because of what that says about Obama, but rather, what it says about Dubya’s presidency."

Sevakis' conclusion, while troubling to him, actually squares with my opinion that the Obama years are a continuation of the fiscal irresponsibility established during the Bush years. This of course helps to explain the current split within the Republican party (which actually has deep roots) and the energetic debate over the recent government shutdown. Finally, it is instructive to compare the growth of government jobs with those in the civilian sector, which have dropped off precipitously since Obama entered office in 2008 per the graph below:

(Civilian Employment by Percentage of Total Workforce, 

cf. http://www.macrofugue.com/welcome-to-peak-capitalism/civpart-payems/)

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