Big Government?

[gatorman_07732]

Originally Posted by mdgator05

The problem is that he doesn't want to believe it or he refuses to try to understand what he is discussing.

He used a set of stats that excluded postal workers. I have attempted to engage him on the difference between the numbers I am using, which are the total federal employment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the main employment statistics group in the US government, and his numbers which are from the OMB, and explicitly exclude postal workers and workers in the legislative and judicial branches of the federal government, on several occasions on both threads.

He has refused or been unable to discuss this difference time-and-time again. Now he has resorted to calling me a liar for using federal employment stats from the BLS rather than his from the OMB, which as I have stated exclude postal workers. I have prompted him several times to attempt to defend the use of this statistic excluding postal workers, but he has either been unwilling or unable to do so.

Nobody in their right mind would agree that Obama has reduced the federal work force. The whole idea is preposterous and the data on the site from the whitehouse refutes that claim.

[mdgator05]

Originally Posted by gatorman_07732

Just wow

Look at the bottom of your graph. What does that sentence say?

"Excludes postal workers"

Wow indeed.

[gatorman_07732]

And in fact



http://www.mygovcost.org/2012/02/16/...esident-obama/

Look how gov is getting smaller

[mdgator05]

Originally Posted by gatorman_07732

Nobody in their right mind would agree that Obama has reduced the federal work force. The whole idea is preposterous and the data on the site from the whitehouse refutes that claim.

Here is the actual data again from the BLS, which is the group that your last chart used (although they used a different series that excluded postal workers).

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2...9091000001.txt

That statistic, gathered by BLS and reported by the St Louis Federal Reserve's econ data group (FRED), shows that we are down 5000 federal workers since February 2009 and up 2000 since January 2009.

I am sorry that you don't like the results. But burying your head in the sand and using a subset of federal workers, with no justification as to why the subset you are using is better than the overall measure, is not an appropriate reaction to data disputing your beliefs.

[gatorman_07732]

Originally Posted by mdgator05

Here is the actual data again from the BLS, which is the group that your last chart used (although they used a different series that excluded postal workers).

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2...9091000001.txt

That statistic, gathered by BLS and reported by the St Louis Federal Reserve's econ data group (FRED), shows that we are down 5000 federal workers since February 2009 and up 2000 since January 2009.

I am sorry that you don't like the results. But burying your head in the sand and using a subset of federal workers, with no justification as to why the subset you are using is better than the overall measure, is not an appropriate reaction to data disputing your beliefs.

If its someone's buring their head it's not me

[mdgator05]

Originally Posted by gatorman_07732

And in fact



http://www.mygovcost.org/2012/02/16/...esident-obama/

Look how gov is getting smaller

Spending is different than the presence of government in the labor market.

However, take a look at the actual bars (the ones in green). After fiscal year 2009 (originally a Bush budget although later increased by both Bush and Obama), we have actually seen a drop. This of course is reliant on a particularly high baseline. And as I said, it is completely irrelevant to a discussion of the labor markets, as this thread was intended. But interesting nonetheless.

[mdgator05]

Originally Posted by gatorman_07732

If its someone's buring their head it's not me

So then answer the question as to why your stats excluding postal workers are more appropriate than the ones not excluding postal workers?

[gatorman_07732]

Originally Posted by mdgator05

So then answer the question as to why your stats excluding postal workers are more appropriate than the ones not excluding postal workers?

It has nothing to do with or without postal workers. You're trying to create an argument where none exists. The point is the BLS as been caught cooking the numbers by making gov jobs appear as private sector jobs. The only people out there attempting to perpetuate this myth of reduction in federal jobs are far leftists such as thinkprogress and mediamatters. Not even CNN is going along with this because the reality if so obvious that Obama has created a ton of federal jobs.

[mdgator05]

Originally Posted by gatorman_07732

It has nothing to do with or without postal workers. You're trying to create an argument where none exists. The point is the BLS as been caught cooking the numbers by making gov jobs appear as private sector jobs. The only people out there attempting to perpetuate this myth of reduction in federal jobs are far leftists such as thinkprogress and mediamatters. Not even CNN is going along with this because the reality if so obvious that Obama has created a ton of federal jobs.

But you just used BLS stats in your chart, just the ones excluding postal workers.

So since your concern is the accuracy of BLS numbers compared to OMB numbers lets try to make a more apples-to-apples comparison of the number.

There is still one difference that can't be separated out, which is that the BLS always counts legislative and judicial branch workers in addition to executive branch workers, while the OMB only counts executive.

So in December 2011, BLS stated that the federal government excluding the postal service had 2,197,000 workers, without seasonal adjustments. OMB gave a figure of 2,102,000 workers. Legislative and judicial branch employment appears to be approximately 70K. So that means that the OMB estimates would have federal government employment at approximately 2,172,000 while BLS estimates that number at 2,197,000, about a 25K person difference, or about 1% different (with the BLS estimates being higher). This could be due to one reporting intelligence agencies while the other does not (I have found some stats report intelligence agencies while others don't). But either way, it is somewhat interesting that I used the numbers that made federal employment look larger, not smaller.

In 2010, BLS reports 2,208,700 workers in the federal government excluding the postal service, while OMB reports 2,128,000. So assuming approximately 70K legislative/judicial employees (which is about average), we get 2,198,000 for OMB and 2,208,700 for BLS, a difference of about 11K, with BLS again higher.

So I actually have been using the organization with the higher estimates of federal employment, although those estimates are fairly close.

Stats taken from: http://www.bls.gov/schedule/archives/empsit_nr.htm#2011
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals
Legislative/Judicial estimate based on historic observations found here:
http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL34685_20110419.pdf