Who Works for the Privileged Public Sector?

10 States Where an Absurd Percentage of the Population Works for the Government

The largest-ever federal payroll will hit 2.11 million in 2011, but the true size of the federal government is much larger: it is estimated to be 15 million or more (including 2 million civil servants, 800,000 postal workers, 1.5 million active duty military and 848,000 in reserve, 8 million contractors, and 3 million grantees). State and local government employs another 18 million. As of April 2009, the size of the U.S. workforce (employed and unemployed) was about 156 million (154,731,000 in the civilian workforce and approximately 1,500,000 in the military workforce). Therefore, almost 10 percent of the U.S. workforce is employed by the federal government and almost 12 percent is employed by state or local government, for a total of 22% of the U.S. workforce employed by local, state and federal government combined. - The U.S. Government's Hidden Workforce

June 6, 2010

Business Insider - Greece's bloated public sector employs the same share of the workforce -- 14.1% -- as America's. Some US states are much worse, giving public jobs to nearly 25% of workers.

A new CEPR report analyzes just how bloated our public sector is.

Surprisingly -- as Economix points out -- the biggest public sectors aren't in liberal states like California. They're in states like Kansas, where people often rail against big government.

#10 Nebraska

Public employees: 128,025

% of all employees: 16.0

Source: CEPR

#9 New York

Public employees: 1,296,806

% of all employees: 16.3

Source: CEPR

#8 Idaho

Public employees: 96,225

% of all employees: 16.4

Source: CEPR

#7 Kansas

Public employees: 201,660

% of all employees: 16.5

Source: CEPR

#6 West Virginia

Public employees: 114,169

% of all employees: 16.7

Source: CEPR

#5 North Dakota

Public employees: 49,454

% of all employees: 16.8

Source: CEPR

#4 Mississippi

Public employees: 191,831

% of all employees: 18.9

Source: CEPR

#3 New Mexico

Public employees: 148,882

% of all employees: 19.9

Source: CEPR

#2 Alaska

Public employees: 60,067

% of all employees: 20.8

Source: CEPR

#1 Wyoming

Public employees: 52,433

% of all employees: 22.0

Source: CEPR

So, who are all those public workers?

Top public sector jobs:

1. Local gov. elementary & secondary teachers
2. Local gov. secondary school teachers
3. State gov. post-secondary teachers
4. Local gov. teachers assistants
5. Local gov. police & sheriff's patrol officers
6. State gov. elementary & secondary teachers
7. Local gov. janitors & building cleaners
8. Local gov. secretaries, administrative assistants
9. Local gov. bus drivers
10. Local gov. fire fighters