And You Thought Your Job Was Important

I confess: I’ve always had back-handed respect for public sector workers. It seemed to me they had figured out how to earn decent money with great benefits while avoiding the stress and strains of the private sector.

This perception was probably colored by my short stint working for my home state, where most colleagues seemed to have about four hours of labor in their eight-hour day. The only cushier job I’ve ever had was teaching at universities.

But now, the legacy media is telling me I got it all wrong – that this may be the one case where lived experience (my own) is not an infallible barometer of truth.

Since the Trump administration began trimming the federal workforce, reporters have been working overtime to depict most every employee as a tireless, mission-driven servant performing essential tasks. Each one is all that stands between us and chaos. Who knew? As a journalist, this narrative has been quite surprising given the rafts of Pulitzers and other career-making prizes won by reporting on government failure – only a true cynic would believe that news outlets see government incompetence as a necessary path to glory.

Recent coverage suggests that government workers are in a category all their own. Business pages routinely report on the massive layoffs that are a routine part of the private economy; just this week, the loss of some 19,000 jobs through the bankruptcy of the fabric and crafts retailer Joann Inc. rated just seven paragraphs from the Associated Press. Where the grim fate of those workers is treated as a statistic, the hardship of each separated federal worker is cast as a tragedy by press outlets determined to give every one the attention of the Bible’s fallen sparrows.

The Washington Post, for example, reported the grave consequences that would result from the firing of Yosemite Park’s lone locksmith. “He was the sole employee with the keys and the institutional knowledge needed to rescue visitors from locked restrooms.”

Heaven knows I would want quick relief if trapped inside a park bathroom. Still, I wondered how common the experience might be – the Post never said so – and whether it might not make more sense to contract with a private company to ride to the rescue. Perhaps the “institutional knowledge” was more than I understood; it turns out the man had spent almost four years apprenticing under the previous locksmith to earn his wings – the same amount of time medical students devote to their studies.

A recent Post article that asks, “Are federal workers lazy?” responds with a resounding heck no. While private sector workers reportedly labor an average of 39.4 hours per week – just below the point where they might start earning overtime – federal workers clock in an average of 41.6 hours per week, qualifying for extra pay. Imagine being so busy that you have to go above and beyond a normal work week just to get everything done!

One wonders how much busier these folks were before the Biden administration’s hiring boom, which, the Wall Street Journal reported, added more federal workers during the last two years than the prior 13. “Since January 2021, the federal workforce has increased by about 120,800 employees. … Between December 2020 and March 2024 (the latest data), employment has increased sharply at the Environmental Protection Agency (9.4%), Agriculture Department (9.6%), Department of Housing and Urban Development (10.7%), Internal Revenue Service (14%), Energy Department (14.8%), State Department (18.4%), and Health and Human Services (18.7%). Independent agencies have also mushroomed, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (9.8%), Securities and Exchange Commission (11.1%), and Federal Trade Commission (11.6%).”

From what I gather from news reports, each of these new hires is akin to a fireman rushing to the scene of an inferno. Each lay-off cuts through the muscle and down to the bone of our Republic.

How did we get along for almost 250 years without all these people? It boggles the mind.

Ronald Reagan once noted, “A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours.” One should have great sympathy for anyone who has been cut loose from their livelihood. And yet, I have faith in these laid-off workers. If press reports are accurate, government employees are the best of the best. Talented and hardworking, they are supremely positioned to prosper in the far less taxing private sector.

Their new jobs may not be as rewarding as dispensing green energy grants at the EPA or conducting tax audits for the IRS, but if anybody can bounce back, they can.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2025/02/27/and_you_thought_your_job_was_important_152432.html