Since 1955, state government employment has increased 379 percent, local government employment 329 percent, and federal civilian employment only 31 percent.

The Stat for the August 2025 issue of National Review (out now!) is:

96 percent — the proportion of the growth in total government employment since 1955 that is from state and local government employment, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In 1955, the first year in which BLS data for federal, state, and local government employment are all available, there were 6.95 million civilian government employees in the United States. Today, there are 23.6 million. That 240 percent increase is much higher than the 127 percent increase in the U.S. population over that same time span.

The enormous expansion of the federal welfare state in the 1960s and the continuous expansion of federal regulations over the decades might lead one to believe that most of the government employment surge is from the federal government, but of the 16.7 million additional government employees since 1955, 15.9 million are in state and local government.

In percentage terms, state government employment has increased the most, 379 percent. Local government employment has increased by 329 percent. Federal civilian employment has increased by only 31 percent. Total state government employment was actually lower than federal civilian employment until 1972. State and local government employment accounted for 67 percent of total government employment in 1955; it accounts for 87 percent today.

Almost the entire increase in government employment over the past several decades is at the state and local levels — the complete opposite of the trend in the balance of government power, which has shifted toward the federal government.