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Monday, October 24, 2011

Yes, Public Sector Cutbacks are Hurting the Economy

Today’s Workplace:

Yes, Public Sector Cutbacks are Hurting the Economy

October 24th, 2011 | Matthew Yglesias

yglesias_matthew_bioI’m reading on right-wing blogs that it was somehow “deceptive” of me to post accurate statistical information about the fact that the private sector labor market is showing okay growth while the public sector labor market is deteriorating. You see, net private sector job losses since the start of the recession have been larger! This is true, which is why I never said otherwise. That’s for the very good reason that the total scale of government employment is pretty small relative to private sector employment:

We have, in other words, many more people working at CVS than the DMV. Which is great. That’s your modern day mixed market economy. Most people work in the private sector. That means the scale of private sector shifts is