“At the local level, Scott Walker’s victory in Wisconsin has shined a bright light on the role public employees – and benefits and pensions – play in state budget deficits,” according to
“The number of public employees has dropped in Wisconsin after Walker’s reforms. And it’s dropped in other states too.
“But – and here’s the rub for President Obama – those same drops in public sector employment are contributing to the tepid job creation that’s standing in the way of his reelection.
“It was actually the public, not the private, sector that shed thousands of jobs in May. While private businesses hired 82,000 people last month, federal, state and local governments wiped 13,000 employees from the payroll, according to Labor Department data.
“’The government is actually contributing to the slow recovery,’ said Scott Brown, the chief economist at the Florida-based financial firm Raymond James & Associates.
“Brown said that if it were not for the “drag” of this public sector job loss, the economy would likely be growing a full percentage point faster, with GDP growing at 3 percent rather than at 2 percent.”
“That would help mop up the jobs lost during the downturn,” he said. “Factor in the drag from government and we are growing at a pace that’s roughly enough to absorb the growth in population but not fast enough to make up much of the ground lost.”
The rest of the article is here.
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Good reporting Jeff. We are going through a period of fiscal austerity with no end in site and the anti-government people complain about too much government. The facts are that government is shrinking, which is a huge drag on the economy. People need to understand that an economy is not the same as a household budget. In a healthy economy one person’s job and salary is directly related to another person’s job. The public and private sector’s work together. When jobs and incomes are cut back, then that downward spiral circles around to affect all.
Thanks Steve. It’s extremely important to get the facts out there to counter the high-pitched political rhetoric, often fraught with misinformation and outright lies.
Its the price you pay for a leaner more efficient government. I have a couple of friends that work for the state(CA) and they both say how many “slackers” work for the state and do as little as they can in any given workday. Gov. Brown is working hard to “weed” these people out in CA government, maybe the Obama admin is trying to do the same at the Federal level.
People: If you want to post on this blog, please sign your name instead of “JohnDoe@JohnDoe.com.” Come on.
Sure there are some slackers, public and private. Generally, they do get weeded out. A few continue to rise through the ranks and make big bucks. Life isn’t fair and some slackers succeed. That doesn’t mean we go and paint everyone with the same broad brush. It also does not mean all government workers are slackers. Besides even slackers who have job and a salary are part of the economy. People are just starting to figure out that “supply side” is a hoax and that you need consumers with money to fuel demand. In fact, that is the very reason food stamps are an extremely effective way to boost the economy. I know that some people want the poor and underemployed to starve. I prefer that they not only eat for humanitarian reasons, but because it fuels a better economy for us all. Well though out goverment spending is part of the solution, not the problem.