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Title: Largest-ever federal payroll to hit 2.15 million
Source:
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URL Source: http://washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... ignals-return-of-big-g//print/
Published: Feb 2, 2010
Author: Stephen Dinan
Post Date: 2010-02-03 21:07:04 by DeaconBenjamin
Keywords: None
Views: 66
Comments: 3
The era of big government has returned with a vengeance, in the form of the largest federal work force in modern history. The Obama administration says the government will grow to 2.15 million employees this year, topping 2 million for the first time since President 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 will grow by 153,000 workers, to 1.43 million people, in fiscal 2010. The expansion could provide more ammunition to those arguing that the government is trying to do too much under President Obama. "I'm shocked that the 'tea party' hasn't focused on it yet, and the Obama administration only has a thin sliver of time to deal more directly with it, I believe," said Paul C. Light, who studies the federal bureaucracy as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor at New York University. "When you talk about big government, you're talking about a big employer." The new figures are contained in the budget that Mr. Obama sent Monday to Congress. Mr. Obama says the civilian work force will drop by 80,000 next year, mostly because of a reduction in U.S. census workers added in 2010 but then dropped in 2011 after the national population count is finished. That still leaves 1.35 million civilian federal employees on the payroll in 2011. From 1981 through 2008, the civilian work force remained at about 1.1 million to 1.2 million, with a low of 1.07 million in 1986 and a high of more than 1.2 million in 1993 and in 2008. In 2009, the number jumped to 1.28 million. Including both the civilian and defense sectors, the federal government will employ 2.15 million people in 2010 and 2.11 million in 2011, excluding Postal Service workers. The administration says 79 percent of the increases in recent years are from departments related to the war on terrorism: Justice, Defense, Homeland Security, State and Veterans Affairs. After years of decline at the end of the Cold War, the Defense Department is restaffing. Mr. Obama estimated that the Pentagon will have 720,000 employees this year and 757,000 employees next year - up from a low of 649,000 in 2003. The data also show that the Department of Homeland Security will grow by 7,000 a year in 2010 and 2011, and the Veterans Affairs Department will grow by 12,000 in 2010 and an additional 4,000 in 2011. Peter R. Orszag, Mr. Obama's budget director, also said more people have been hired to oversee outside contracts. "Over the past eight or nine years, those contracts have doubled in size. The acquisition work force has stayed constant. It's not too hard to figure out that oversight of those contracts has not kept pace with what it should be," Mr. Orszag said. Even as the total number of federal employees rises, the ratio of employees to Americans has declined steadily, from one employee for every 78 residents in 1953 to one employee for every 110 residents in 1988 to one employee for every 155 residents in 2008. The federal work force is older than the private-sector work force, which Mr. Light said raises the possibility of reducing the total number through retirements. About 31 percent of the private work force is 50 or older, while 46 percent of the federal work force is 50 or older. Mr. Obama is in a situation similar to that of Mr. Clinton, who took office when the budget deficit was at a record high and government bureaucracy was expanding, even though the Pentagon was shedding workers with the end of the Cold War. Mr. Clinton in 1996 declared that "the era of big government is over" and took steps to work with Congress to control spending and cut the work force, which already had been trending lower. As he left office in 2000, Mr. Clinton boasted that his administration had helped cut 377,000 government jobs, leaving the smallest civilian federal work force since 1960. Mr. Obama, though, appears to be accepting a larger federal work force. The administration has called for federal workers to get a 1.4 percent pay raise next year, which Mr. Orszag said, "frankly, I think to a lot of Americans, sounds pretty good." The American Federation of Government Employees, the union that represents many government workers, said it was combing through the budget and did not have a comment.
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#1. To: DeaconBenjamin (#0)
Maybe I didn't read your article correctly but here is the table from OPM: (numbers in thousands) Notes: Data comes from agency 113 monthly submissions and covers total end-of-year civilian employment of full-time permanent, temporary, part-time, and intermittent employees. Executive branch includes the Postal Service, and, beginning in 1970, includes various disadvantaged youth and worker-trainee programs. Uniformed Military Personnel data comes from the Department of Defense. Excludes 7,411 project employees in 1963 and 406 project employees in 1964 for the public works acceleration program. On Jan. 1, 1969, 42,000 civilian technicians of the Army and Air Force National Guard converted by law from State to Federal employment status. They are included in the Federal employment figures in this table starting with 1969. Includes temporary employees for the decennial census. "The most terrifying words in the English language are, I'm from the government and I am here to help." -- Ronald Reagan, circa 1976
Somehow some of the data in the table trows are switched in the wrong column headings but as can be seen the most recent table by the OMB shows a consistent trend in federal employees.
"The most terrifying words in the English language are, I'm from the government and I am here to help." -- Ronald Reagan, circa 1976
1) I assume this article is talking about the data presented in the first column of your table. 2) The article excludes postal employees (which has been as high as a million, and has dropped dramatically since 2000). If the OMB table includes postal employees in the first column, and the article excludes postal employees, they may yet agree. According to the Postal Service annual reports, there were 901,238 postal employees in 2000; 712,082 in 2009.
he who wants bread is the servant of the man that will feed him, if a man thus feeds a whole people, they are under his control.
Total Government Employment Since 1962 1
Year Executive branch civilians (thousands) Uniformed military personnel (thousands) Legislative and judicial branch personnel (thousands) Total Federal personnel (thousands) 1962 2,485 2,840 30 5,354 1963 2 2,498 2,732 30 5,260 1964 2 2,470 2,719 31 5,220 1965 2,496 2,687 32 5,215 1966 2,726 3,129 33 5,888 1967 2,968 3,413 34 6,416 1968 3,020 3,584 35 6,639 1969 3 3,040 3,499 36 6,575 1970 4 2,944 3,104 38 6,085 1971 4 2,883 2,752 40 5,675 1972 2,823 2,360 42 5,225 1973 2,781 2,289 44 5,113 1974 2,847 2,198 46 5,091 1975 2,848 2,164 49 5,061 1976 2,833 2,119 50 5,002 1977 2,840 2,112 53 5,005 1978 2,875 2,099 55 5,028 1979 2,823 2,063 53 4,939 1980 4 2,821 2,090 55 4,965 1981 4 2,806 2,122 54 4,982 1982 2,770 2,147 55 4,972 1983 2,820 2,163 56 5,039 1984 2,854 2,178 56 5,088 1985 3,008 2,190 58 5,256 1986 2,966 2,206 55 5,228 1987 3,030 2,213 58 5,301 1988 3,054 2,176 59 5,289 1989 3,064 2,168 60 5,292 1990 4 3,067 2,106 61 5,234 1991 4 3,048 2,040 64 5,152 1992 3,017 1,848 66 4,931 1993 2,947 1,744 66 4,758 1994 2,908 1,648 63 4,620 1995 2,858 1,555 62 4,475 1996 2,786 1,507 61 4,354 1997 2,725 1,439 62 4,226 1998 2,727 1,407 62 4,196 1999 2,687 1,386 63 4,135 2000 4 2,639 1,426 63 4,129 2001 4 2,640 1,428 64 4,132 2002 2,630 1,456 66 4,152 2003 2,666 1,478 65 4,210 2004 2,650 1,473 64 4,187 2005 2,636 1,436 65 4,138 2006 2,637 1,432 63 4,133 2007 2,636 1,427 63 4,127 2008 2,692 1,450 64 4,206
#2. To: DeaconBenjamin (#1)
#3. To: buckeroo (#2)
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