The Government's Hiring Binge by Stephen Moore and James Carter Stephen Moore is director of fiscal policy at the Cato Institute. James Carter is an economic analyst in Northern Virginia. T he news last week that the November unemployment rate had risen to 5.5 percent, didn't prevent President Clinton and Labor Secretary Robert Reich from crowing about the 11 million new jobs created since January 1993. Those are impressive numbers indeed, but they camouflage a disturbing trend in America's labor force to which few are paying much attention.
Government is a prime source for that job growth.
Take out the decline in Pentagon employment and there are now nearly 1 million more nondefense government jobs than there were when Bill Clinton took office. This is a good time to be a school teacher, a social worker or a foreign service officer. Government jobs have grown more than employment in manufacturing, mining, finance, insurance and real estate combined . Today, there are 1.3 million more workers in government than manufacturing. We now have fewer people making widgets than regulating and taxing them.