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Wait, exactly how many people work for the federal government?edition.cnn.com/2024/12/14/politics/federal-government-workers-what-matters/index.html
171 sats \ 7 comments \ @Imyourfed 14 Dec Politics_And_Law
Cut federal workers?
The current effort, run by Ramaswamy and Musk, has made a show of eyeing the size of the federal workforce. One percolating idea, according to CNN’s reporting, is that they could recommend firing every federal worker hired in the last year.
The national debt has more than exploded
It went from less than $1.6 trillion in 1984 ($4.8 trillion in 2024 dollars) to more than $35.5 trillion today, which should concern every American and is plenty of reason to make any effort to control federal spending a serious and bipartisan push.
How many people actually work for the government, including contractors?
That review of “The True Size of Government” conducted for The Volcker Alliance by researcher Paul Light determined that in 1984, there were more than 6.9 million people working as civilians for the federal government when including contractors and grant employees. Add in the military and postal workers and the figure jumped to 9.8 million. Intervening years saw a drawdown in the military after the Cold War and then a buildup during the Global War on terror. The study concluded with data from 2015, when there was a total of 9.1 million workers, or 7.3 million without the military or postal service.
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11 sats \ 1 reply \ @BeeAye 15 Dec
i dont have a single friend that doesnt either work for the gov, have a job subdidized by the gov, work in an industry propped up by the gov, or works for a consultancy that mainly contracts with the gov. i think the bloat is far worse than this indicates, and cutting into some of these useless parts of the gov will have more extreme 2nd and 3rd order effects than can realistically be anticipated.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Imyourfed OP 15 Dec
Good point the government’s reach is huge. Cutting even small parts could have big ripple effects on jobs and industries connected to it. Definitely something to think about
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10 sats \ 1 reply \ @denlillaapan 14 Dec
A couple of million, yeah, plus military personnel.
So not that many. You could cut all of them (or reduce their salaries to 0) and still not make a visible dent in the deficit
(The problem isn't the wasteful things nobody cares about, like Musk and Ramaswamy sometimes suggest, but the endless money pits of Medicare/social security that lots of people really care about. Cutting those would be an immense achievement)
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Imyourfed OP 14 Dec
Agreed cutting federal workers won’t fix the deficit it’s a drop in the bucket compared to Medicare and Social Security. Those programs are the real challenge, but much harder to address.
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10 sats \ 1 reply \ @OgFOMK 14 Dec
This does not take into account contractors who are doing the jobs that federal employees don't want to do.
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Imyourfed OP 14 Dec
Good point, it doesn’t show the full picture
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Rothbardian_fanatic 14 Dec
Considering contractors, military personnel, government workers, NGO people and the ever present confidential human resources, welfare recipients, workers at heavily subsidized companies, it could be a huge hunk of the population, perhaps 1/2 or more. Perhaps if they are receiving money from the taxpayers, they should not be allowed to vote! (A serious proposal)
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