The labor market has been booming for years, but the speedy recovery from the depth of the pandemic-induced recession has been uneven. Even as aggressive fiscal policy interventions helped state and local government employment recover much more quickly than after the Great Recession, it still took state and local government employment longer than private sector employment to regain all lost jobs. And, state and local government employment is still down as share of the overall labor market, when compared to its longer-term average before the austerity during and after the Great Recession that started in December 2007. Had state and local government employment maintained its share of total employment since then, there should have been 2.1 million more jobs in those sectors in February 2024 than there were. These missing workers have meant much worse working conditions for those employed by state and local governments and, as a result, poorer service for people, businesses, and communities.
State and local governments employ many more people than the federal government does. This should not be surprising. State and local governments provide a wide range of often labor-intensive services. Those services include public education, from kindergarten through high school, to community colleges and public four-year colleges and universities. They also include transit and public health as well as public safety such as police, firefighters, 911 operators, judges and corrections officers, to name just a few. Libraries, hospitals, parks and recreation, water, food and housing inspections, tax collections, auditors of state and local agencies, economic development agencies, retirement systems, and health insurance, most notably the administration of Medicaid, are all part of the range of services that state and local governments provide for people, businesses and communities. Everybody needs well-functioning public services on an almost daily basis to stay healthy and safe, to keep business costs down, and to grow local economies.
Support authors and subscribe to content
This is premium stuff. Subscribe to read the entire article.