Government payroll across U.S. Presidencies
by Rebecca Wilder
The term of Brazil’s President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, concludes this year. During President Lula’s tenure, Brazil enjoyed stable monetary policy and strong economic growth. However, President Lula is likewise known for growing the size of Brazil’s government, for example, by adding over 300k government jobs. This translates into a 4.8% increase in the government payroll when adjusted for working-age population growth.
This is a criticism of Lula’s administration – growing the size of the government (here, as measured by its payroll), and stifling some prospects for long-run economic growth.
Accordingly, let’s see how previous U.S. Presidents grew the U.S. government payroll: is there a party trend? The general idea is, that the Democratic Party seeks a larger role for government as a mechanism to increase economic welfare than does the Republican Party (generally). A priori, I expect to see more robust government payroll growth during Democratic administrations.
The chart illustrates the level change in the total government payroll by Presidency since 1953 (the data are not seasonally adjusted and reported here). There is no noticeable correlation between party and the government payroll, although LBJ and Clinton, Democrats, did grow government jobs by the widest margin, 2.6m and 2.3m, respectively.
State and local government jobs are included in the measure of “government”, while a better link to party affiliation is the federal payroll. Furthermore, the population – and thus total payroll – grew as well. So, in focusing solely on the federal payroll in percentage gains (in order to remove effects of term length), and adjusting for population growth, there appears to be a stronger correlation between the current administration’s party affiliation and government jobs growth.
The top 3 federal job-creators were LBJ, JFK, and Obama, Democrats, while 4 out of the top 5 top federal job-slashers were Nixon, Bush, Bush, and Ford, Republicans. Interestingly, Clinton ranks first in cutting the federal payroll; it fell by almost 10% when the population grew by roughly the same amount – in adjusted terms, that’s -18% fewer federal jobs.
This analysis, of course, does not account for recessions, budgets, or external factors that would differentiate payroll growth across periods. However, there is a correlation, as in Brazil, between party affiliation and the growth of the federal payroll.
Rebecca Wilder
An immediate observation is that two term presidents tend to be on the top of the list and one term presidents are on the bottom of the list. So with the government growing as the economy grows is seems the longer you’re in office the more government will grow under your watch.
Rebecca, other correlation points are military (civilian and uniformed) payrolls, and the policy of bringing in-house or contracting out. Both policy decisions effect employee growth.
It has been understood for decades that Fed employment growth is much less than state growth. Implementation and management of many Fed. programs is done by the states, and those are most often performed by state employees versus contractors. We are probably looking at the managment pyramid.
Rebecca, I am afraid that Cantab is dimly grasping the problem but not getting it right, In order to be meaningful you need to add JFK to LBJ, Nixon to Ford, and double up each of Carter and GHW Bush to get comparable time frames.
By that measure JFK/LBJ would be far in the lead followed by Carter and GHW Bush and by eye Nixon/Ford, then the four 2 termers Clinton, GW, Eisenhower, Reagan. Grouped that way the significance seems to wash away and the job specific policies of each president comes to the fore.
Bruce, you’re falling into Cactus’s madness.
The better approach that would handle both Kennedy and the new Obama administration would be to measure change in expenditure over time in office. Then you could look at each administration separately
Cantie, what is amazing is that the “O” is registering at all with less than one year of data.
This is on more solid ground than some of Cactus’s posts because this really is something that presidents can control– directly and from day one.
Along the lines of Bruce’s comment, I would not combine partial terms or double the numbers for one-termers. Instead, look at the average annual growth of federal payroll for everyone regardless of whether they have been in office for 1 year, whether they finished out a term, or whether they were elected to two full terms.
Miss Rebecca–For federal payroll, does your data show only federal employees or total employees including contract workers? Last I heard, there are about 8 million federal contract ee’s over and above the actual number of federal employees on the payroll. One pretty serious criticism of contracting out govt work is that this practices hides the extent of government involvement in the work force. Which is why the Clinton administration employed contracting out liberally, even in agencies which had in-house IT and other staff. Anyway, it would be interesting to know where contractors stand in these numbers.
And, in regard to the current administration, the earliest federal agencies could have started hiring was June or July. It takes a while for money to show up at the agency level and even longer to crank up the OPM hiring machine. So, I wonder how valid the numbers about his hiring are. Is this on-board hires, projected hires or what? It just doesn’t look like a solid number to me, based on my own federal experience. Thanks for a good piece. Very helpful.
When normalized all of these by jobs per 8 years, the Dems came out on top. Numbers are eyeballed, but here’s what I got: JFK-LBJ 3.9 million, Carter 3.0, Clinton 2.7 (all Dems), then Nixon-Ford 2.6, Geo W Bush 2.3, Reagan/GHWB 2.2, and Ike 1.8 (all Reps). The question of contractor is a good one, though, especially for Republicans.
This may have already been considered, but the inflationary-deflationary conditions play an important role here. Obama’s situation seems incommensurable to that of Carter’s etc..
Also, every 10 years there is a temporary spike in govt hiring.
The ebbs and flows of contracting out have also skewed the data. For example, bringing TSA under the umbrella of federal employment did not constitute a new government program in any meaningful sense of the term, but it did increase the size of the federal workforce. At a lot of military bases (Ft Bragg, Ft Campbell) the civilians who work at repairing and maintaining the equipment are contractors who work under 10 month contracts and then some get dumped on state unemployment roles for 2 months (Sep/Oct), while at other bases (Ft Lewis, Ft Hood) the same work is done year round by govt employees. Same work, and the same money spent per worker, but it’s just paid out by different parts of the govt.
CoRev,
I’m sure some of it is due to the bad economy, but it’s also the case that OPM has had to start a crash hiring program to replace a lot of early baby boomer workers hired under LBJ and Nixon. OPM has been warning of a bow wave of retirements and the need to bring in new workers at pretty fast clip.
Just to flesh out the arithmetic. An early baby boomer born in 1946 graduates from college in 1968, then goes to work for the government. CSRS retirement max’s out at 42 years service, so 1968 + 42 years service = retirement in 2010. I know a lot of people who fit this exact profile.
Good point 2Slugs,
THe effort to replace us boomers includes hiring folks from industry at mid to upper rates as opposed to at lower rtaes during the usual recruitment times.
I a boomer retired in 2003.
Observations without data.
Since Department of War (ignomimious DoD) acquisition (corporate welfare) reform during the shut down of military welfare programs after the soviets evaporated there was a rush to contract out work that should be done by federal employees in arsenals and depots. As Bush Sr and Clinton slowed weapons welfare spending the corporate recipients went after repair and supply work.
Today in Iraq there are 200 or more different supply systems because the DoD went to contractor logistics support. It is hugely expensive, manpower intensive and welfare wasteful. It is also spending that otherwise would show up in federal employment run by defense logistic agency and general services adminstration.
There is a missing piece of the federal payroll under GW Bush. It is the contracted out federal labor to the warfare welfare state.
Now federal employees are a form of welfare, but the cost for civil servcie welfare is less with no skimming of profits and administrative burden but GS employment sends very little money into PAC’s.
But we vote in blocs.
One for one replacement is not adding. It’s status quo. You know we don’t add slots for potential retirees.
Ilsm, “Federal employees are a form of welfare….” Right. Oh, boy. I am glad I don’t have the energy to expand on that thought. But, you know, you should rethink your notion of federal employment. IMO
ilsm
Today in Iraq there are 200 or more different supply systems because the DoD went to contractor logistics support. It is hugely expensive, manpower intensive and welfare wasteful.
Boy Howdy is it ever expensive!!! And even CONUS-based logistics ERP systems are bankrupting DoD. The Army’s new “wholesale” ERP system costs more than three times the old legacy costs and Army’s goal is to have 70 percent of the functionality. Paying three times as much for 30 percent less…and that’s considered a success story.
ilsm
Today in Iraq there are 200 or more different supply systems because the DoD went to contractor logistics support. It is hugely expensive, manpower intensive and welfare wasteful.
Boy Howdy is it ever expensive!!! And even CONUS-based logistics ERP systems are bankrupting DoD. The Army’s new “wholesale” ERP system costs more than three times the old legacy costs and Army’s goal is to have 70 percent of the functionality. Paying three times as much for 30 percent less…and that’s considered a success story.
CoRev,
Not true. OPM and govt agencies have been trying to bring new people on board before the bow wave of retirements hits. The expectation is that the old timers will train the younger ones before the old timers retire. And in the engineering world the govt has to overhire because they know that many of the new hires will quit.
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