3 ms·
It's just the bare facts from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This WP article has a graph -- basically, at its height (the New Deal/WWII) the federal workforce
by jhbadger 2y ago
It's just the bare facts from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This WP article has a graph -- basically, at its height (the New Deal/WWII) the federal workforce was about 7% of the workforce and have been going downward since then to about 2% today.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/12/federal-workers-trump-doge-cuts/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/12/federal-w...
- robertlagrant 2y agoThanks, interesting. I wonder how much of that is the progression of women entering the workforce. It's quite a specific metric to use.
- aerostable_slug 2y agoI suspect a fair bit of it is the elimination of Federal make-work programs established during the New Deal.
- postalrat 2y agoIMO that's a poor measurement of "government size". Not that I have a better one though. But it doesn't account for technology or scaling.
- ty6853 2y agoI also like expenditures as % GDP. It was generally far below 5% federally during non-war periods between civil war and ww1, and for most that time no income tax for regular workers. We also had pretty solid growth in that period, pretty close to that of the post WW2 boom. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GjNDwxtXwAAYvL5?format=png&name=900x900 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GjNDwxtXwAAYvL5?format=png&name=...
- llamaimperative 2y agoIt indicates that reducing headcount is almost certainly a poor way to "increase efficiency."