Kansas has nearly the highest number of local government employees per resident, compared to other states.
Local government employment by state. Click for larger.Local government employment in education. Click for larger.For all local government employees, Kansas had 50.59 per thousand residents in 2016, higher than all states (and areas) but the District of Columbia and Wyoming. These employees had an annual payroll of $2,141.16 per resident. Ten states were higher.
Considering elementary and secondary education, Kansas had 30.03 such employees per thousand residents. This was higher than all states but Vermont and Wyoming. The payroll for these employees was $1,150.85 per resident, with eleven states above Kansas.
Kansas is a small state in terms of population. Might small states have higher needs for employees on a per-resident basis? A plot of employees vs. population shows nearly no relationship between the two.
These are local government employees only. State and federal government employees are not included.
Of note, Hawaii has no local employees in elementary and secondary education, as it has one school district which is run by the state. 1
The source of this data is the United States Census Bureau. I’ve gathered it and placed in in an interactive visualization. Click here to learn about the visualization and use it to make your own charts and tables.
State population vs. local government employment per resident. Click for larger.
An interactive visualization of local government employment, grouped by state and function.
These are local government employees only. State and federal government employees are not included.
Source of data is United States Census Bureau, Local Government Employment and Payroll Data: March 2016. The program’s page is Annual Survey of Public Employment & Payroll (ASPEP).
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 and the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) employees per thousand residents.
In this episode of WichitaLiberty.TV: The end of a Sedgwick County Commission election, the Wichita Eagle editorializes on school spending and more taxes, and Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell seems misinformed on the Wichita economy. View below, or click here to view at YouTube. Episode 207, broadcast August 26, 2018.
Article: Wichita Eagle argues for higher taxes: The Wichita Eagle editorial board wants higher taxes. Relying on its data and arguments will lead citizens to misinformed and uninformed opinions.
Article: The Wichita Mayor on employment: On a televised call-in show, Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell is proud of the performance of the city in growing jobs.
For the first quarter of 2018, the number of jobs in Sedgwick County grew, but at a rate slower than the nation.
Data released today from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, part of the United States Department of Labor shows an improving labor picture in Sedgwick County, but one growing at one-fifth the rate of the nation.
For the first quarter of 2018 there were 12,500 establishments in Sedgwick County employing 247,800 workers. That is an increase in jobs of 0.3 percent from the same time the previous year, a rate which ranked 293 among the nation’s 350 largest counties. For the same period, the national job growth rate was 1.6 percent.
(Ranked by labor force, Sedgwick County is the 120th largest county.)
The average weekly wage was $967, an increase of 2.4 percent over the year, that change ranking 228 among the same 350 largest counties. The U.S. average weekly wage increased 3.7 percent over the same period.
For July 2018, more jobs in Kansas, and a nearly unchanged labor force. Wichita jobs also rose.
Data released today from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, part of the United States Department of Labor, shows an improving jobs picture for Kansas in July 2018.
Over the year (July 2017 to July 2018), the Kansas labor force is down slightly, while up slightly over the past three months. These changes are small, all being in the range of 0.1 percent.
The number of unemployed persons continues to fall. The unemployment rate remains at 3.4 percent, down from 3.6 percent from one year ago.
Click for larger.
The number of Kansas nonfarm jobs for July 2018 rose by 1.7 percent over last July, adding 23,400 jobs. This is using seasonally adjusted data, and the non-adjusted figure is larger at 24,900.
Click for larger.
This release also provided some data for metropolitan areas. For the Wichita MSA, here are employees on nonfarm payrolls, not seasonally adjusted:
July 2017: 290,600
June 2018: 297,700
July 2018: 295,200 (up 4,500 jobs, or 1.6 percent over the year)
Comparing June 2018 to July 2018 isn’t meaningful using this data, as it is not adjusted for seasonality.
Of note, the same data series for the nation rose from 146,486,000 to 148,901,000 over the year, an increase of 1.6 percent.
For the Wichita metropolitan area in June 2018, jobs are up, the unemployment rate is down, and the labor force is smaller, compared to the same month one year ago.
Data released this week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, part of the United States Department of Labor, shows an improving employment situation for the Wichita Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Click for larger.
The best numbers for Wichita are the total nonfarm employment series, which rose from 294,900 last June to 297,900 this June. That’s an increase of 3,000 jobs, or 1.0 percent. (This data is not seasonally adjusted, so month-to-month comparisons are not valid.)
Of note, the same series of data for the nation rose from 147,578,000 to 150,057,000 over the same time, an increase of 1.7 percent.
The unemployment rate fell to 4.0 percent from a year ago. Part of the improvement in the unemployment rate is due to a slightly smaller labor force.
Considering seasonally adjusted data from the household survey, the labor force rose slightly from May 2018, and employment was unchanged. This is a slowdown of a positive trend in the previous three months.
On a televised call-in show, Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell is proud of the performance of the city in growing jobs.
On the inaugural episode of Call the Mayor on KPTS, Wichita’s public television station, Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell said this:
Three years ago the biggest concern in this community is we need jobs. Jobs, jobs, jobs. And today, we need people. And so keeping Cargill in Wichita and seeing Spirit grow and seeing companies invest is far different than what we had just three years ago when people were so concerned about the opportunity to find meaningful employment in our city.
What the mayor said sounds good. Now. here are statistics from Bureau of Labor Statistics, civilian labor force and nonfarm employment by metropolitan area, seasonally adjusted, for the Wichita Metropolitan Statistical Area:
May 2018
Civilian labor force: 306,574 (down by 1.5 percent)
Employment: 295,012 (down by 0.42 percent)
Unemployment rate: 3.8 percent (down by 1.0 percentage point, or 20.8 percent)
These are statistics from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) data set, also known as the household survey.
Here are some other statistics, again from Bureau of Labor Statistics, state and area employment, seasonally adjusted, for the Wichita Metropolitan Statistical Area:
May 2015
Employment: 295,500
May 2018
Employment: 298,600 (up by 1.0 percent)
These are statistics from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) data set, sometimes called payroll data.
These are two different sets of data. One shows employment rising, and one shows it declining. The difference comes from the fact that one set of data comes from households, and the other from employers. For a full explanation of the data and how there can be these differences, see Visualization: Metro area employment and unemployment.
The important thing is that Mayor Longwell said, in a roundabout way, that there are plenty of jobs in Wichita, and there are not enough workers to fill them.
If there are not enough workers in Wichita, it’s because the labor force (the number of people working plus those looking for work) shrank over the time period the mayor mentioned. That’s why there are not enough people to meet Wichita’s job growth (such as it is).
And while the number of jobs in Wichita rose in the employer survey, it rose by 1.0 percent over three years. The same statistic for the entire United States rose by 5.1 percent over the same period. This doesn’t seem like much of an accomplishment, Wichita growing jobs at a rate one-fifth of the nation.
In the first quarter of 2018, the Kansas economy grew at the annual rate of 0.5 percent in real terms, slowing from the previous quarter.
In the first quarter of 2018, the Kansas economy grew at the annual rate of 0.5 percent in real (inflation-adjusted) dollars, according to statistics released today by Bureau of Economic Analysis, a division of the United States Department of Commerce. GDP for the quarter was at the annual rate of $161,551 million.
This is a decline in the rate of growth from the fourth quarter of 2017, when the rate was 2.3 percent.
Click for larger.The first quarter numbers put Kansas in 47th position among the states, with only Arkansas, Idaho, and North Dakota posting lower numbers. Quarterly GDP can be volatile, as shown in the nearby chart.
For Kansas, industries that differed markedly from the state average include:
Agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting, down by 1.08 percent.
Wholesale trade, down by 0.13 percent.
Management of companies and enterprises, up by 0.07 percent.
Administrative and support and waste management and remediation services, unchanged.
Educational services, up by 0.01 percent.
Arts, entertainment, and recreation, down by 0.03 percent.
Accomodation and food services, down by 0.03 percent.
For June 2018, more jobs in Kansas, and a nearly unchanged labor force. Wichita jobs also rose.
Data released this week from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, part of the United States Department of Labor, shows an improving jobs picture for Kansas in June 2018.
Over the year (June 2017 to June 2018), the Kansas labor force is down slightly, while up slightly over the past three months. These changes are small, all being in the range of 0.1 percent.
The number of unemployed persons continues to fall. The unemployment rate remains at 3.4 percent.
Click for larger.
The number of Kansas nonfarm jobs for June 2018 rose by 1.8 percent over last June, adding 24,800 jobs. This is using seasonally adjusted data, and the non-adjusted figure is larger at 30,900.
Click for larger.
This release also provided some data for metropolitan areas. For Wichita, here are employees on nonfarm payrolls, not seasonally adjusted
June 2017: 294,900
May 2018: 300,600
June 2018: 297,900 (up 3,000 jobs, or 1.0 percent over the year)
Comparing May 2018 to June 2018 isn’t meaningful using this data, as it is not adjusted for seasonality.
Recently Kansas Policy Institute, along with Americans for Prosperity and Kansas Chamber of Commerce, held a series of briefings for candidates for the Kansas Legislature. The presentations in Wichita were recorded, and are available as follows:
What Was Really the Matter with the Kansas Tax Plan. KPI President Dave Trabert spoke on the reality and myths of the state’s tax plan. Click here to view at YouTube.
Kansas K-12 Education Spending and Achievement. KPI President Dave Trabert spoke on K-12 education spending and achievement. Click here to view.
Medicaid Expansion. Melissa Fausz, a senior policy analyst with Americans for Prosperity, spoke about Medicaid expansion. Click here to view.
Kansas Chamber Legislative Update. Eric Stafford, vice president of government affairs for the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, spoke on the legislative process in Kansas. Click here to view.
Property Taxes. KPI President Dave Trabert spoke on property taxes in Kansas. Click here to view.
A visualization of coincident and leading economic indicators for the states.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia calculates two indexes that track and forecast economic activity in the states and the country as a whole.
The coincident index is a measure of current and past economic activity for each state. This index includes four indicators: nonfarm payroll employment, the unemployment rate, average hours worked in manufacturing, and wage and salary disbursements deflated by the consumer price index (U.S. city average). The average value for the complete year 2007 is given the value 100. 1
The leading index predicts the six-month growth rate of the state’s coincident index. In addition to the coincident index, “the models include other variables that lead the economy: state-level housing permits (1 to 4 units), state initial unemployment insurance claims, delivery times from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) manufacturing survey, and the interest rate spread between the 10-year Treasury bond and the 3-month Treasury bill.” 2
Positive values mean the coincident index is expected to rise in the future six months, while negative values mean it is expected to fall.
I’ve created an interactive visualization of these two indexes. Click here to open the visualization in a new window.
An interactive visualization of data over time from the National Transit Database.
Do you wonder how much it costs to run your transit system? The National Transit Database holds data for transit systems in the U.S. I’ve gathered some key statistics and presented them in an interactive visualization.
In the case of Wichita, we see that “OpExp per PMT” for 2015 is $1.02. This is total operating expense per passenger mile traveled. It’s not the cost to move a bus a mile down the street. It’s the cost to move one passenger one mile. And, it is operating cost only, which means the costs of the buses are not included.
Some definitions used in the database:
UZA: The name of the urbanized area served primarily by a transit agency.
UPT: Unlinked passenger trips.
PMT: Passenger miles traveled.
Total OpExp: Total operating expense.
The visualization holds three tabs. One is a table of figures. The other two illustrate data for a single transit system or single mode.
An interactive visualization of state and local direct general expenditures, per resident.
Data is from State & Local Government Finance Data Query System, available at slfdqs.taxpolicycenter.org/pages.cfm. The Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center. Data from U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances, Government Finances, Volume 4, and Census of Governments (1977-2015). Date of Access: (16-Oct-2017). Data is not adjusted for inflation.
Kansas has a lot of government employees when compared to other states, and especially so in education.
Considering all government employees — state and local — Kansas has 68.35 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees per thousand residents. Only two states and the District of Columbia have more.
For total elementary and secondary education employment, Kansas has 30.64 such employees (full-time equivalent) per thousand residents. Only two states have more.
Looking at nearby states and some Plains states commonly thought to be big spenders (Iowa and Minnesota), Kansas has more employees and more education employees, again on a per-resident basis.
This data comes from the United States Census Bureau. I’ve gathered it and present it in an interactive visualization. Click here to learn more about the visualization and to use it yourself.
Example from the visualization, showing Kansas and selected states. Click for larger.
If Kansas government doesn’t have enough money to meet spending requests, it’s not for the lack of collecting taxes.
Here is a chart of state tax collections per resident, for Kansas and selected states.
Do you hear complaints of how Kansas is bankrupt and there is no money to spend on schools, roads, and other needs? If these complaints are valid (they aren’t), the problem is not caused by collecting insufficient tax revenue.
To learn more about the data in this visualization and to use it to make your own charts, click here.
State government tax collections per resident, Kansas and other states. Click for larger.
Wichita employment trends are positive for three consecutive months.
Seasonally adjusted data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, part of the United States Department of Labor, shows a rise in the Wichita metropolitan area labor force and job count. This data is through May 2018 and shows three consecutive months of rising employment.
This is a reversal of the long term trend for Wichita, in which the labor force and employment have been falling or trending steady while the nation’s economy has been growing. An interactive visualization of employment data for all metropolitan areas is available here.
While the upward trend is welcome, it is not known whether Wichita can sustain positive growth.
In May, the forecast for Wichita from Center for Economic Development and Business Research (CEDBR) at Wichita State University was pessimistic: “The production sectors are projected to remain approximately flat in 2018. Natural resources and construction employment is forecast to increase by less than 100 jobs while manufacturing employment is projected to decline by less than 100 jobs.”
This decline in manufacturing employment is forecast even after the new Spirit Aerosystems jobs are accounted for. In its reporting on this forecast, the Wichita Eagle wrote:
Late last year, Spirit, the city’s largest employer, announced plans to hire an additional 1,000 mostly production workers over two years, with the bulk of the hiring expected in 2018. Bombardier announced plans to add 100 jobs when it moves its Global 5000 business jet interior completions work from Canada to Wichita later this year.
“I’m not so sure all of the positive news means we’re growing,” [CEDBR director Jeremy] Hill said.
He said the gains at Bombardier and Spirit are offset by contraction and consolidation by smaller manufacturers that supply parts to Spirit and other aircraft manufacturers. In some cases, work the smaller firms have done has been taken back by larger manufacturers, who are now doing it themselves. Retirements in aircraft manufacturing may also be affecting the numbers, Hill said, but he doesn’t have the data to confirm that.
“It is hard to get your hands on,” he said. “It’s definitely not showing up in the (employment) numbers, not showing up in output in durables manufacturing.”
An interactive visualization of labor force, employment, and unemployment rate for all metropolitan areas in the United States.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics, part of the United States Department of Labor, makes monthly employment and unemployment statistics available. I’ve gathered them for all metropolitan areas and present them in an interactive visualization.
The labor force, specifically the civilian labor force, are those people working, plus those people actively searching for work, minus people under 16 years of age, minus people living in institutions (for example, correctional facilities, long-term care hospitals, and nursing homes), minus people on active duty in the Armed Forces. 1
BLS defines unemployed people as: “Persons aged 16 years and older who had no employment during the reference week, were available for work, except for temporary illness, and had made specific efforts to find employment sometime during the 4-week period ending with the reference week. Persons who were waiting to be recalled to a job from which they had been laid off need not have been looking for work to be classified as unemployed.” 2
The unemployment rate is “the number unemployed as a percent of the labor force.” 3
In the visualization, you may select tabs to show a table or a chart. You may select a range of dates and the metro areas that appear.
A look at income in Wichita compared to other Midwest cities.
How much do Wichitans earn at their jobs, compared to other cities?
Click for larger.This data is of interest as recently James Chung told an audience that “average income” is $10,000 higher in Midwest comparable cities than in Wichita. He didn’t define the term “income,” he didn’t define the comparable cities, and he didn’t provide any sources of data. But mention of this is a good time to look at income in Wichita and other cities.
Occupational salaries
The Bureau of Labor Statistics, part of the United States Department of Labor, collects data regarding salaries of occupations in different cities in a program called Occupational Employment Statistics. More information about this program may be found here.
One way to examine income in different cities is to compare the salaries for different jobs using the OES data collected by BLS. I selected some cities to compare with Wichita: Cedar Rapids, IA; Colorado Springs, CO; Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA; Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, AR-MO; Kansas City, MO-KS; Oklahoma City, OK; Omaha-Council Bluffs, NE-IA; and Tulsa, OK. (The data is collected for Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), not cities. But it seems more natural to use the term city.)
The OES dataset is large, holding data on over 800 occupations, and it’s unwieldy to make apt comparisons. Besides what I report below, I’ve also created an interactive visualization of the OES data. In the interactive visualization, you may select any cities and occupations for comparison. Click here to learn more and use it.
Occupational salary example. Click for larger.Considering all occupations for this sampling of cities, the annual salary in Wichita is $43,880, while it is $50,600 in Des Moines. That’s $6,720 lower in Wichita, or 13 percent.
Considering a few semi-random occupations: For buyers and purchasing agents, the highest salary is in Cedar Rapids at $75,830. The Wichita salary is $9,640 less, while the Des Moines salary is $15,070 less.
For food service managers, the highest salary is in Colorado Springs at $66,300. The Wichita salary is $1,520 less, while the Des Moines salary is $21,270 less.
For police officers, the highest salary is in Colorado Springs at $68,980. The Wichita salary is $21,670 less, while the Des Moines salary is $4,310 less.
For telemarketers, the highest salary is in Fayetteville at $27,760. The Wichita salary is $1,860 less, while the Des Moines salary is $2,100 less.
For the broad category of architecture and engineering occupations, Wichita is the leader in the sample at $82,710. Des Moines is at $71.930, which is $10,780 lower.
For the broad category of production workers, Wichita again leads the sample at $44,950, while Des Moines is at $35,190, which is $9,760 lower.
Personal income
Another set of data that can help is personal income. For Des Moines, personal income per person is $50,677 (complete year 2016). For Wichita, the value is $47,395, which is $3,282 less. (For an interactive visualization of personal income, see Visualization: Personal income by metropolitan area.)
Click for larger.
Difficulties
Comparing average salaries for groups of occupations in different cities has problems. One is the number of workers in occupations. Considering management occupations, there are few chief executive officers but many other managers. The weight of the number of workers needs to be considered.
Also, the magnitude of salaries is an issue. Chief executive officer salaries vary widely, by tens of thousands of dollars. The data tells us that a CEO in Wichita earns $65,400 less than in Des Moines. That variation is greater than the average salary across all occupations, and provides little insight into the salaries of the majority of workers.
The per capita personal income figures overcome these obstacles.
$10,000
Do Wichitans earn $10,000 less than in comparable Midwest cities, as James Chung recently presented? Based on per capita personal income, the answer is no. Not even close to that, although Wichita’s per capita income is not encouraging.
Based on occupational salaries, Wichitans earn less than many comparable Midwest cities, but nothing near $10,000 less when all occupations are considered. In specific occupations, Wichita salaries are much less, but in some cases Wichita salaries are highest.
Kansas personal income rose at the annual rate of 4.2 percent in the first quarter of 2018, compared to the previous quarter. Compared to the same quarter of 2017, the increase was 2.2 percent.
The quarterly change for the first quarter ranked 32 among the states.
Major contributors to the change in personal income were farm earnings down 0.61 percent, durable goods manufacturing up 0.88 percent, finance and insurance up 0.53, professional, scientific, and technical services up 0.39, and health care and social assistance up 0.48.
The OES program produces employment and wage estimates for over 800 occupations. These are estimates of the number of jobs in certain occupations, and estimates of the wages paid to them. These estimates are available for the nation as a whole, for individual States, and for metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), metropolitan divisions, and nonmetropolitan areas; national occupational estimates for specific industries are also available. 1
OES data is gathered through a semi-annual mail survey of non-farm establishments. Data is released annually in May using three years of data to improve reliability. For example, “The May 2017 employment and wage estimates were calculated using data collected in the May 2017, November 2016, May 2016, November 2015, May 2015, and November 2014 semi-annual panels.” 2
OES jobs category illustration. Click for larger.
BLS presents data in a hierarchy. 3 At the tops are groups, like “13-0000 Business and Financial Operations Occupations” in the nearby example.
There are then one or more subgroups like “13-1020 Buyers and Purchasing Agents.” Then, there are actual occupations, like “13-1021 Buyers and Purchasing Agents, Farm Products” and “13-1022 Wholesale and Retail Buyers, Except Farm Products.”
Drilling down. Click for larger.The visualization I created uses the hierarchical nature of the data: Groups, Subgroups, and Occupations. In the visualization, when you hover the mouse of a column heading, a “+” or “-” may appear. Click on these to expand or contract the data. This is also known as “drill down.”
In the Table by Area, the differential between each city and the highest-salaried city is shown in dollars and percent.
When looking at data using the Group or Subgroup level, the salary data is summarized by computing the average. This may not be the proper technique, and is why I classify this visualization as experimental.
Comparing average salaries for groups of occupations in different cities has problems. One is the number of workers in occupations. Considering management occupations, there are few chief executive officers but many other managers. The weight of the number of workers needs to be considered.
Also, the magnitude of salaries is an issue. Chief executive officer salaries vary widely, by tens of thousands of dollars. The data tells us that a CEO in Wichita earns $65,400 less than in Des Moines. That variation is greater than the average salary across all occupations.
Data is for the May 2017 release, the most current available.
