Visualization: State and local government employment

A visualization of federal, state, and local government civilian employees by state and function.

Each year the United States Census Bureau surveys federal, state, and local government civilian employees. ⁽¹⁾United States Census Bureau. Annual Survey of Public Employment & Payroll (ASPEP). Available at https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/apes.html. The amount of payroll for a single month (March) is also recorded. I’ve made this data available in an interactive visualization.

The Census Bureau describes the data:

The survey provides state and local government data on full-time and part-time employment, part-time hours worked, full-time equivalent employment, and payroll statistics by governmental function (i.e., elementary and secondary education, higher education, police protection, fire protection, financial administration, central staff services, judicial and legal, highways, public welfare, solid waste management, sewerage, parks and recreation, health, hospitals, water supply, electric power, gas supply, transit, natural resources, correction, libraries, air transportation, water transport and terminals, other education, state liquor stores, social insurance administration, and housing and community development).

The survey provides Federal Government data on total employees, full-time employees, and total March payroll by governmental function. There is no detail available for part-time employment, part-time hours worked, full-time equivalent, or full-time or part-time employee payrolls. Three functions apply only to the Federal Government and have no counterpart at the state and local government levels: national defense and international relations, postal service, and space research and technology. ⁽²⁾United States Census Bureau. Available at https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/apes/about.html.

In the visualization, I’ve multiplied the March payroll number by 12 to produce an approximation of annual payroll. Using each state’s population for each year, I’ve also computed the annual payroll on a per-resident basis, the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) employees per thousand residents, and the number of residents per FTE employee.

Click here to access the visualization.

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