Manhattan Moment: Whites hit hardest by public employee layoffs

The Washington Examiner ^ | 12/6/2011 | Steven Malanga

[Thunderballer]

A story appeared in The New York Times last week claiming that the downsizing of government is having a disproportionate impact on the economic fortunes of blacks because they are overly represented in government jobs.

The Times then editorialized that this disproportionate impact was reason to pause and reconsider further government downsizing.

Yet the Times' story, repeating a theme that others have echoed, ignores actual government data on public sector employment, which shows something quite different.

In fact, it is whites who are somewhat more overrepresented in government relative to their position in the broader population, and it is whites who have absorbed the brunt of government layoffs.

Quarterly data from the Current Population Survey of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks actual statistics on government employment by race, show that as of the third quarter of this year, there were slightly under 20 million government jobs in America.

Of that number, 15.86 million (or 79 percent of all government jobs, to be precise) were held by white workers. Some 2.87 million jobs, or 14.3 percent of the total, were held by blacks.

These numbers are no shock when you consider that whites make up some 73 percent of the nation's population and 82 percent of the nation's workforce, and blacks compose 12.3 percent of the population and 11 percent of the total workforce.

In other words, blacks hardly rely on government employment to any extraordinary degree beyond whites. Four out of five black workers work in the private sector.

Now to the downsizing. The CPS shows that since the peak of government employment in 2008, those jobs are down by some 1.27 million positions. Government positions held by white workers have declined by just under a million, and by blacks have declined by 240,000 jobs.

[Thunderballer]

This article is a few months old, but it stood out to me as a great example of how the liberal media will distort facts and figures to support using the race card as a weapon against government downsizing.

[no dems]

In other words, blacks hardly rely on government employment to any extraordinary degree beyond whites.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Oh yeah? I challenge the author of this article to go into any Health and Human Services Office, Child Protective Services Office, Post Office, Social Secuity Office or any other Government Office in Southeast Texas and count the White employees. They are few and far between. 90% of the employees are Black. Just sayin’

[tobyhill]

Remember Derrick Bell.

[brownsfan]

I had to go to the title bureau, (don’t use PNC bank for auto loans!), and I noticed that about 80% of the employees were black. It was a “hmmmmm” moment for me.

[US Navy Vet]

SHEEET, Whitey don’t Need no Gubmint Job, thems for us MINORIIES!

[MrB]

You know that they’ve already got a plan to frame downsizing government as “racist” because of the disparate impact on “minorities”.

[DoughtyOne]

Government downsizing...

Bwa ha ha ha ha ha..., bwa ha ha ha ha ha... to infinity.

Oh stop it you guys, you’re killin me...

[Pearls Before Swine]

You know that they’ve already got a plan to frame downsizing government as “racist” because of the disparate impact on “minorities”.

Long term, the end goal is a mostly minority staffed, unionized government that will be the new masters.

[MrB]

I think you’re right there.
I have dealt with some extremely rude and imperious “government employees” who seemed to revel in their position of power “over” me, having the ability to approve or deny something I wanted to do with or on my own property.

[autumnraine]

I know a truck driver who lost his job BECAUSE he was white. They had a government contract and in order to keep with the ‘30% minority’ requirement, they had to lay off 10 white people to hire 10 minorities.

[Thunderballer]

Well, the U.S. Postal Service was voted number one among federal government agencies for minority hiring and 21% of its employees are black while 60% are white. So the vast number of other federal agencies apparently fall below that 21%.

http://postalemployeenetwork.com/news/2011/05/u-s-postal-service-voted-no-1-for-supplier-diversity/

I think that people get confused because the only employees that they see are the people working the counters. And I don't believe that there is a federal Children's Protective Services Office. Those are state offices.

[Thunderballer]

Apparently, the trucking company that he worked for was a private company.

[USAF80]

It’s the opposite here over only seven blacks out of 60 or so. It depends on the field. They have almost all minorities and women in certain sections.

[okie01]

I challenge the author of this article to go into any Health and Human Services Office, Child Protective Services Office, Post Office, Social Secuity Office or any other Government Office in Southeast Texas and count the White employees.

Recall that government employment includes the military -- which is ethnically distributed almost exactly as the general population.

It also includes NASA. And the National Park Service. And the National Forests. The National Laboratories. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency. Et cetera.

There are some federal (and state) agencies where "diversity" is non-existent.

And there are others, as you say, that are seemingly the exclusive provinces of minorities.