Rand Simberg decries the fact that in the US government jobs have now overtaken "Good-Producing" jobs.
If he think's that's bad, 10% of the Canadian population is currently employed by Crown and somewhere near 20% of all jobs in Canada are in the public sector.
In comparison the US has 8% of its population working for the state, or about 14% of all US jobs.
Assume that the 20% number is correct. To that you add the unemployed, which is officially at 8% but, when those who have given up looking for work is calculated at 12%. Split the difference and call it 10%. On top of that figure you can add at least 5% for those on welfare or long term government assistance due to injury or illness. That totals out at 35% of the population that is supported by the remaining 65% that are gainfully employed. And, before the government workers start whining about how they too pay taxes, bear in mind that your total salaries, including the portion taken by the government, comes from money paid out by non-government taxpayers.
ReplyDeleteThat means that for every three working families their taxes are going to support one additional family. Does anyone else think this is getting to be a pretty big burden for working families to carry.
Sorry for the miscalculation folks. My math, as usual, is up to its usual horrendous standard.
ReplyDeleteMake that every two families instead of three.