Economics Questions

Re: United States workforce

duffmann808 — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:41:03 GMT

Spideynw:
And what is your website?

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

Re: United States workforce

Spideynw — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:15:40 GMT

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?

Re: United States workforce

duffmann808 — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 15:57:53 GMT

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.

Re: United States workforce

HiggsBoson — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 19:32:01 GMT

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!

Re: United States workforce

Juan — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 19:18:20 GMT

How many people work for the state as 'contractors' ?

Re: United States workforce

Spideynw — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:51:37 GMT

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".

Re: United States workforce

duffmann808 — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:26:13 GMT

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.

United States workforce

Spideynw — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:05:28 GMT

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?