While total government employment nationwide continues to shrink, it turns out that solidly Democratic states are shedding public-sector jobs at a faster clip than solidly Republican states,
The Washington Post reports.
In fact, since Barack Obama became president in 2009, red states — as measured by the intensity of their support in 2012 for Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney — "have actually added jobs on net, while more Democratic states have lost them," writes Philip Bump of the Post's political blog, The Fix.
But it's not because Democrats have suddenly embraced the Republican credo of smaller government: Population changes, coupled with a state-by-state political map that has more deep reds than deep blues, are driving the trend, according to the Post.
Very red Texas and North Dakota — states Romney won handily in 2012 — have added more government jobs as their populations and private-sector hiring have boomed in recent years, for example.
By contrast, Michigan — an easy Obama win in 2012 — lost both residents and public-sector jobs.
The trend isn't uniform: Some solidly blue 2012 states, like Nevada, have added to government payrolls, and some solidly red 2012 states, like Louisiana, have not. And states the Post's Blum rated as purple — meaning Obama or Romney's victory margins were much smaller and closer to the national average — also had varying rates of growth or shrinkage in public employment.
But the clear overall trend since 2009, counting all 50 states and the District of Columbia, is "a big dip in government jobs," suggesting that Republicans are winning the argument, writes Bump.
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