The number of Wisconsin public employees compared to the state population is lower than ever, according to a report published by the Wisconsin Budget Project, an independent Madison-based research group.
This record low follows a two-decade-long trend of a shrinking government workforce. Using government employee data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau in March 2013, the report concluded Wisconsin now ranks 42nd nationwide in the number of government employees per capita. This amounts to 5.9 percent fewer public workers than the national average.
“Public employees in Wisconsin teach our children, repair our transportation network and keep our communities safe,” Tamarine Cornelius said in her Wisconsin Budget Project press release. “We need to make sure we have enough public employees to have the kind of efficient, effective public sector that can improve the state’s economic competitiveness as well as the quality of life for Wisconsin families.”
Most public employees work in schools, according to the press release, with six out of 10 government workers employed in education.
Having fewer government employees has led to a decrease in the public payroll rate, which is now down to 7.7 percent below the national average. This lower rate can also partially be attributed to Wisconsin workers earning an hourly rate lower than the national average according to the report.
“It might surprise some people to know that only eight other states had a leaner public sector than Wisconsin, but we’ve had fewer government workers per population than the national average for at least two decades now,” Cornelius said in the release.
