What's even worse for an economy is when "work" results in negative productivity. Government bureaucrats are often an example of this. The "work" they do too o

What's even worse for an economy is when "work" results in negative productivity. Government bureaucrats are often an example of this. The "work" they do too often involves impeding productive private sector workers/organizations in some way. Not only are these impeded private sector workers/organizations not doing their real work, but they're expending resources dealing with something that's usually quite irrelevant. That's on top of the tax burden they already face, which is being used to fund the bureaucrats that make these tax-payers less productive. In the end, thanks to the "work" of government bureaucrats, less real wealth has been generated than otherwise would have been.