I used to think so as well, but someone pointed out to me that Germany has a similar % of public sector jobs as the USA, and Spain is not that much higher, and

I used to think so as well, but someone pointed out to me that Germany has a similar % of public sector jobs as the USA, and Spain is not that much higher, and all seem to be shrinking. Belgium on the other hand seems to be stable at 21% (21.5% 2013, 21.1% 2019) so it would seem to fit the hypothesis :-). I still think that it's a contributing factor, but perhaps it's more of a symptom and less of a factor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_sector_size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_se...