Tim from The Mess that Greenspan Made (great blog by the way) showed a rather astounding chart detailing that for the first time (ever?) the number of individuals employed by the government is larger than the number employed within the manufacturing sector.



However, in this instance, this is not a story about "bigger government". Rather, it is a story of a long in the making shift from manufacturing to servicing (as anyone who has lived or visited an old manufacturing city [think Detroit or Cleveland] can attest to).



For all the hype of big government, the number of individuals employed by the government is actually smaller as a percent of the civilian institutional population than it was in the mid-1970's (9% vs. 10%).

Source: BLS