How many people do you think the United States needs to run the essential operations of government?
Well, whether we need them all or not, The Wall Street Journal noted recently that “there are nearly twice as many people working for the government than in all of manufacturing.”
We need lots of people making the countless products that we enjoy, of course. But do we really require so many employees in government, which does not produce economic growth?
It is reported that all U.S. manufacturing combined employs 11.5 million people. Good!
But there are approximately 22.5 million people employed by government. Not so good.
The Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore pointed out that “Every state in America today except for two – Indiana and Wisconsin – has more government workers on the payroll than people manufacturing industrial goods.”
Everyone knows that we need federal, state, county and city government services. But do you really believe that all our tens of millions of government workers are essential?
Private enterprise manufacturing jobs provide us an abundance of products – and generate the taxes to support government.
So don’t we need more people “making” than we do “governing”?