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United States workforce

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Spideynw Posted: Fri, Sep 5 2008 11:05 AM

Does anyone know how much of the U.S. workforce is socialized?  In other words, what percentage of the workforce are government employees and where to find the information?

At most, 5% of the population would need to stop complying to bring down the government.

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http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet

 

The preliminary estimate for August is 22,486,000...which is very likely to change.  This is from an estimated population of about 305,046,000.  This number includes all forms of government from state to local.

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Spideynw replied on Fri, Sep 5 2008 12:51 PM

duffmann808:

http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet

 The preliminary estimate for August is 22,486,000...which is very likely to change.  This is from an estimated population of about 305,046,000.  This number includes all forms of government from state to local.

Thank you very much.  Now I just need to find out what the total workforce is.  If only 100 million work, than 22% of the workforce is socialized...

Ok, so according to http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html, there were ~116 million "private nonfarm" employees in 2005.  That would mean 19% of the U.S. workforce is "socialized".

At most, 5% of the population would need to stop complying to bring down the government.

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Juan replied on Fri, Sep 5 2008 2:18 PM
How many people work for the state as 'contractors' ?

February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church.
Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."

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This may be useful to you:

"Uncle Sam employs over 2,704,000 workers and hires an average of 300,000 new employees each year to replace workers that transfer to other federal or private jobs, retire, or stop working for other reasons. Average annual salary of all full-time employees exceeded $67,000 as of January 2007. The U.S Government is the largest employer in the United States, hiring 2 percent of the nation’s civilian work force."

http://www.federaljobs.net/overview.htm

I dont think they include contractors in these numbers.

Didnt Bush claim to have reduced the Federal payroll when really he just shifted more jobs to contractors, voila less government!

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The math there is a little lacking.....private nonfarm implies that it doesnt include government jobs and obviously not farming jobs. You should include farming jobs, as those are jobs too, and when you figure government employment as a percentage as part of total jobs you have to include the government.

 

 

116+22=138

116/138=84

 

So government jobs on all levels make up about 16% of the job force.  This all goes back to the fundamental issue of liberterianism, that government would be better served if it was not all funnelled towards the federal level.  I have a blog about this.  Less government means more for everyone, but I think it is important to distinguish, because everyone seems to have been sensitized to thinking of government as solely federal.

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Spideynw replied on Tue, Sep 16 2008 6:15 PM

Jonathan:

The math there is a little lacking.....private nonfarm implies that it doesnt include government jobs and obviously not farming jobs. You should include farming jobs, as those are jobs too, and when you figure government employment as a percentage as part of total jobs you have to include the government.

116+22=138

116/138=84

So government jobs on all levels make up about 16% of the job force.  This all goes back to the fundamental issue of liberterianism, that government would be better served if it was not all funnelled towards the federal level.  I have a blog about this.  Less government means more for everyone, but I think it is important to distinguish, because everyone seems to have been sensitized to thinking of government as solely federal.

Thank you for the clarification. 

Now does not the government consume like half the gdp as well?

And what is your website?

At most, 5% of the population would need to stop complying to bring down the government.

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Spideynw:
And what is your website?

 

My most frequent blog is on the Mises website...

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