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Myth Boxes
The Oversized Bureaucracy
Many Americans believe in the myth of the oversized bureaucracy. Thefederal bureaucracy has indeed grown into an extremely large institutionover the past two centuries. It would be foolish, however, to look atits growth without considering the growth in other areas of Americansociety.
For example, while the number of Americans employed by the federalgovernment has increased from a few thousand to 3 million, the overallsize of the American labor force has grown even faster. Within the totalU.S. labor force, federal civilian workers accounted for 2.7 percent ofall employed individuals in 1987: That is, less than three of every 100employed Americans worked for the federal government. During World WarII that figure had been as high as 4.7 federal workers for every 100Americans, and even as recently as 1970 there were 3.7 civilians on thefederal payroll for every 100 people in the U.S. labor force. Thus, whenviewed as part of the U.S. labor force, the federal bureaucracy does notlook quite as big and may not be growing as much as many peoplebelieve.
Nor does the size of the federal bureaucracy seem too big whencompared with the number of civilian workers employed by state and localgovernments. In 1986, the federal government employed fewer than one outof every five government workers in the United States. That year, stategovernments employed 4 million public employees, while local governmentsemployed 9.8 million people.
In other words, while 3 million federal employees may seem like alarge number, in relative terms the federal bureaucracy is not as big asit appears at first glance. Nevertheless, 3 million is a great manypeople, and the question of why there are so many federal bureaucrats isunavoidable.
Source: Data from Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1989 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989), tbs. 479,519.
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