Comments on: Another Look At Government Job Growth in Texas

By: Joe Mitchell

Joe Mitchell — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 16:38:32 +0000

Is this growth just state government employees or all levels of government?

By: Sean

Sean — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 13:41:49 +0000

To be clear, I am talking about the growth in Government jobs as compared to Texas.

By: Sean

Sean — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 13:40:16 +0000

And yet population growth was higher in Arizona and Wyoming compared to Texas but they didn’t see so much government growth. California had a 1.5% increase compared to Texas’s 2% increase and they end up losing government jobs.

By: Sean

Sean — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 13:37:23 +0000

Arizona had higher population growth than Texas at 2.1% and lost government jobs. Wyoming too had higher population growth than Texas at 2% and added about 3% in government jobs. So there goes that talking point.

By: jonathan

jonathan — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 18:47:30 +0000

No one says Texas is big government. The point is that expanding population requires government: Texas’ public sector expands because people need schools, roads, electricity, garbage pickup, etc. About half the jobs were in education, which especially fits because Texas has so many children.

The only question I have is that CA has significantly government employees per population than Texas. I checked the numbers and CA has 30% more while population is 50% more. (And to be clear, that is not spending, just the count of government employees.)

By: T. K.

T. K. — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 14:23:31 +0000

Discounting the growth in public sector jobs would increase the unemployment rate if only the private sector is looked at. This would tarnish the “Texas Miracle” view of employment by moving it closer to the national norm and lowering it further versus Massasschussets or New York.

By: T. K.

T. K. — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 14:18:56 +0000

Rick Perry, who knew he was a big government type. This should definitely help his Tea Party street cred.

By: Misaki

Misaki — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 23:36:12 +0000

Wait, didn’t Texas have population growth or something during the same time period? While the previous post on this topic included this quote,

“Turns out Texas was the state that depended the most on those very stimulus funds to plug nearly 97% of its shortfall for fiscal 2010, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.”

Just how much of the increase in jobs is due to federal support, and how much is due to an increase in state revenues from the people moving to the state?

The premise might still be true, but considering that public sector jobs dropped more quickly for all states, the simple fact that Texas has lost private sector jobs but gained public sector since 2007 might not prove anything.

By: Don

Don — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 23:08:24 +0000

The number of state government jobs in Texas is 1.2% of the population (2009 numbers), about on par with that of California (1.1%). A place like New Jersey’s ratios is 1.8%. That means Texas would have to increase the number of people on its government payroll 46% to catch up to the same ratio. Further, there has been about 6% or more growth in Texas’ population during the time period referenced; on par with the growth of government jobs.

By: Jared Bernstein

Jared Bernstein — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 22:45:14 +0000

If you follow the steps on this page you can get the numbers…ask for ‘not seasonally adjusted’ to get the full year data:
http://data.bls.gov/pdq/querytool.jsp?survey=sm