But were we really "all in it together?" United States Labor Department Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that we weren’t.
While the private sector lost 22 million jobs from February 2020 to April 2020, and state and local government cut about 1.6 million jobs in response to the pandemic, one group of people prospered during the pandemic — the federal government workforce. The federal workforce actually grew slightly during the pandemic never dipping below the 2.63 million employed at the employment high water mark of the Trump administration and indeed our nation’s history in February 2020.
That’s right, the very people who were so earnestly leading the "we’re all in it together" chant, were not in it at all. And quite frankly, were major beneficiaries of the economic shutdown.
Well, dip me in gravy! But wait! There's more!
And of course there is that "famous" federal bureaucrat work ethic. Since the pandemic, a June 10, 2021 memo from the federal OMB and the federal Office of Personnel Management reports that 60% of the federal workforce is telecommuting, while praising the "many thousands of Federal employees with responsibilities that could not be performed remotely have continued to undertake mission-critical duties at their workplaces and on the frontlines of the national response, day-in and day-out through the pandemic."Heroes, all. Raises and bonuses all around.
Anyone who has been in Washington, D.C. in the past few months knows that the once busy, bustling downtown remains a virtual ghost town as the hundreds of thousands who would normally inhabit the dozens of federal buildings in the city remain at home, presumably working.
State and local governments, which cannot just print money to pay employees, cut payroll positions pretty aggressively, as the federal government just rolled along as if nothing was happening — employees unaffected with the exception that they did not have to go into the office.
So what does it mean?
The hidden effect of this perverse situation was that the very federal government bureaucrats making recommendations about the balancing act between the economic and public health needs of the nation never felt the economic consequences of their decisions. They had no skin in the game.
Science!