Number of the week: 21.9 million U.S. government workers in Jan., the lowest total in seven years

[bigtree]

Last edited Sat Mar 2, 2013, 11:09 AM - Edit history (1)

____________________

Government Payrolls Shrinking Even Before the Sequester

The billions of dollars in federal budget cuts known as the “sequester” began to take effect on Friday after President Barack Obama and Congressional Republicans failed to reach a deal to avoid them. But even before the latest round of cuts, the public sector was getting smaller by at least one critical measure: jobs.

Federal spending is still rising. But that is mostly because of the rising cost of entitlement benefits, primarily Social Security and Medicare, as well as interest on the national debt. Spending on most everything else, from defense to scientific research, is falling as a share of economic output—and in many cases falling outright. Inflation-adjusted federal spending, as measured by the Commerce Department in its GDP accounting, has fallen in seven of the past eight quarters.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/03/02/number-of-the-week-government-payrolls-shrinking-even-before-the-sequester/

chart of the week:

[bluedigger]

1. A lot of this is outsourcing to contractors.

Contractors hire temp employees with no benefits to do the jobs at triple the cost to the taxpayer.