The number of local government workers at the municipal level in North Carolina grew at nearly twice the rate of private sector workers, and also outpaced the state’s population growth, over a recent ten-year period.
Furthermore, the average salary for municipal workers in North Carolina is 4.5 percent higher than the average salary for private sector workers.1
Data from the North Carolina Employment Security Commission reveals that municipal government employees increased by 20.1 percent from 1997 to 2007,2 compared to North Carolina’s private workforce growth of 11.5 percent. 3
Moreover, North Carolina’s population grew at a pace of 18.4 percent4 during that time – meaning the growing number of municipal workers outpaced statewide population growth.
A growing municipal government workforce means not only swelling government payrolls in the short-term, but an ever-increasing obligation for their retiree benefits and pensions in the long term; all to be paid for with scarce local tax dollars. In the coming years, such obligations will draw more and more funds away from other local priorities like police, roads and parks.
The data presented here provides further evidence that governments at all levels, from the federal government down to your local town government, is growing at an unsustainable pace.
As members of the private sector struggle through yet another recession, members of the privileged government class continue to grow – all at taxpayer expense.
1 Average municipal salary in 2007 was $40,463; average private sector salary in 2007 was $38,623.
Average salary for municipal workers from US Census Bureau, Census of Government Employment, and author’s calculations. Available at: http://harvester.census.gov/datadissem/
Average private sector salary from NC Employment Security Commission, Quarterly Census Employment and Wages.
Available at: http://esesc23.esc.state.nc.us/d4/QCEWSelection.aspx
2 US Census Bureau, Census of Government Employment. Available at: http://harvester.census.gov/datadissem/
3 NC Employment Security Commission, Quarterly Census Employment and Wages, taken from March each year to match US Census Bureau data for municipal workers.
Available at: http://esesc23.esc.state.nc.us/d4/QCEWSelection.aspx
4 Office of State Budget & Management, state demographer’s office. Available at: http://www.osbm.state.nc.us/ncosbm/facts_and_figures/socioeconomic_data/population_estimates/demog/ncpopgr9.html
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