Federal Government Seeing the Most Job Growth

President Obama has caused an outrage between Democrats and Republicans. However, it is not always common for both parties to agree on one bill. There has only been one bill that the parties have even agreed on since the economic crisis began. December 2007 was the official start of the recession and the United States has seen the unemployment rate increase 5% since then. The total non-farm payroll has totaled about 6.5 million less jobs than when the recession first started. Those are large numbers for the American public to feel. However, the federal level continues to grow, while the private sector is barely hanging on by a thread.

The executive branch is seeing a 15 percent increase in jobs. This number does not include the CIA and a few other agencies. Since September 2007 the executive branch has seen an increase of 14.8 percent in employees. A couple of different tallies show different numbers but the total amount of jobs added in the executive branch comes out to around 275,000. Some say the growth in government jobs may have been because of Obama’s stimulus bill, which was introduced in 2009. A lot of that money was not seen in local economies but instead was used to retain Medicaid and other government programs and jobs. A lot of the money also went to help sustain the jobs of teachers so that kids still have schools to attend.

California, Virginia, Texas and Maryland are all places in which federal jobs are off the charts. Most of these states also have very high unemployment rates. These are interesting numbers considering the amount of government employees located in all four states.

Mitt Romney, who is a Republican presidential candidate, says that this is a big issue in American today. A growing government workforce and a stand still employment growth in private and public sectors. Romney states that he would “cut federal employment by at least 10 percent through attrition.” Romney also states that “the Defense Department’s bureaucracy is bloated to the point of dysfunction and is ripe for being pared. In the years since 2000, the Pentagon’s civilian staff grew by 20 percent while our active duty fighting force grew by only 3.4 percent.”

Anyone can tell that the federal job market has seen the most growth. However, what can America do about it? Since the recession started in September of 2007, the military has also seen a huge increase in employees. Department of Veterans Affairs spokesman Joshua Taylor said, “Under the President’s budgets, the VA has seen one of the largest increases in the past 30 years, which has allowed VA to hire more staff, treat more patients, and provide benefits to more Veterans. VA recognizes that few organizations have received this kind of resourcing support, but every bit of it is needed to address longstanding issues and to provide Veterans and their families with the care and benefits they have earned.”