Growth in government bureaucracy accounts for almost 30% of nation’s job growth in past year

June 7, 2024, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement in response to the latest jobs numbers:

“Almost 30% of the nation’s job growth over the past twelve month comes from the growth of local, state and federal government hiring even though government only makes up 15% of everyone with jobs.  That’s right, out of the 2.1 million new jobs created over the past year according to the U.S. Department of Labor, 617,000 of them were government jobs.  According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, total government employment in May of 2024 reached an all-time high of 23,319,000, up about 1.5 million since Joe Biden took office with federal employment alone up more than 1.1 million.

“Hiring non-productive paper pushers and armed Internal Revenue Service agents don’t create wealth, but instead are a drag on the overall economy.  The irony is that one impact of draining the swamp in DC would be a jump in reported unemployment as the bloated federal bureaucracy would be trimmed. One thing no one should be surprised about is that Biden has significantly grown the size of the government workforce pouring money into the coffers of his government employee union benefactors.”

For media availability contact Americans for Limited Government at media@limitgov.org.

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