I’m going to write one more post using data from the 2007 Census of Governments employment phase, then give it a rest for five years until the next Census of Governments. In a prior post I compared New York City with several other older central cities that were co-terminus with county boundaries, counties being the smallest unit of geography for which comparable local government data can be compiled. These places, however, tend to be much smaller than New York City, and much richer (San Francisco, Boston, Washington) or poorer (Baltimore, Philadelphia, St. Louis) than the New York City as a whole. San Francisco and Boston, for example, are in many ways the equivalent of Manhattan rather than NYC. In the attached spreadsheet, therefore, I compare New York City with the national average and three of the counties with the largest population in the country, Los Angeles, Cook (Chicago) and Harris (Houston), and three counties that have been booming lately, Mecklenberg (Charlotte), possible future headquarters of Merrill Lynch, Wake (Raleigh-Durham), “America’s Boomtown,” and Travis (Austin), the place Barry Popik fled to. In general, all of these places have average local government employment relative to their populations. New York City does not.
Overall, Los Angeles County has 4,238 local government workers per 100,000 workers, Cook County 4,113, Harris County 4,238, Wake County 3,535, and Travis County 4,094, all not far from the U.S. average of 4,044 and well below New York City’s 5,149.
I was surprised to find that Mecklenberg County had a sky-high 5,916 local government workers per 100,000 residents, due solely to 2,004 public hospital workers per 100,000, compared with the national average of 190 (and 485 in New York City). There are over 17,000 public hospital workers in this relatively small county (counties in the South tend to be very small and numerous), most apparently working for something called the Charlotte-Mecklenberg Hospital Authority. This revelation sent me over to the BLS website to find what private health care employment is like there, and though I was unable to get second quarter 2007 data comparable to that used elsewhere, I did get annual data. Private hospital employment is indeed low in Mecklenberg at 641 per 100,000 residents compared with a national average (for a slightly different time period) of 1,474 and 1,899 in NYC. But private health care excluding nursing homes and home health care is also high at 1,743 (vs. 1,503 and 1,183).
Aside from Charlotte’s public hospitals being an employment gravy train, the only explanation is that residents of nearby counties are traveling to Mecklenberg to receive health care in its public hospital. That would make it an unusual public hospital indeed. Interestingly, North Carolina was, until recently, the only state outside New York to impose a significant local government matching share for Medicaid, which meant that people from poor North Carolina counties showing up at the doorstep of the Charlotte-Mecklenberg Hospital Authority (rather than, say, going to New York City) would have had their care subsidized by that county (rather than their own). In any event, best as I can recall the local share has been mostly done away with in that state (I’ll check next year).
It appears that Los Angeles County local government workers are very well paid. Whereas the average private sector worker in that county earned 12.1% more than the U.S. average in 2007, the average local government worker earned 38.7% more than the U.S. average in March of that year, with teachers (44.9% more than average) police officers (53.8%) and firefighters (93.2%) scoring well.
On the other hand, Harris County is not a good place to be a local government worker. While the average private sector worker earned 23.8% more than the U.S. average (I’m surprised at how well paid Dallas and Houston private sector workers are given the cost of living there), the average local government worker was paid 9.1% less than average, with teachers paid 9.9% less, police officers 5.0% less, and firefighters 18.0% less, despite having to deal with refinery fires.
In the other counties, overall local government pay per worker and private sector pay per worker each differed from the national average by a more similar amount. Teacher pay appears low relative to private sector pay in Mecklenberg, Wake and Travis, but rapid growth and thus a higher share newly-hired lower-paid teachers may be an explanation. In Cook County, as well as Mecklenberg and Wake police officer pay appears low compared with police officers elsewhere, while in Mecklenberg, Wake and Travis, firefighter pay appears low.
Speaking of police officers, Cook County has 412 of them per 100,000 residents, compared with 565 in New York City. The other places are closer to the national average of 207. Cook County is close to New York City in its number of firefighters per 100,000 residents, but the other counties are much closer to the national average – the figures are difficult to determine since volunteer fire departments may cover some of their areas.
Los Angeles and Cook County have fewer teachers per 100,000 residents than New York City, following the pattern of larger and older urban areas putting less into their schools. But Harris, Mecklenberg and Wake have more teachers per 100,000 residents than New York, and the low number of Travis is misleading, because population is inflated by the 40,000 students at the University of Texas, most of whom presumably don’t have children. All these counties have more non-instructional school employees than NYC. The 64 parks and recreation workers per 100,000 residents is lower than in Los Angeles County, Cook, Wake, or Travis, though slightly higher than in Mecklenberg and far higher than in Harris.
New York City’s transit employment, like its ridership, is higher relative to population than Los Angeles and Cook Counties, and far higher than in the other counties. Los Angeles County is closest to New York in public welfare employment, but none of these counties comes close in housing and community development employment.
In summary, while New York City residents can save money by relying on its large transit system, it otherwise costs them money to support far more local government workers than these other comparable counties. The high pay, relative to private pay, of Los Angeles County local government workers may present a similar burden.
The more general idea, which will become more clear as finance data becomes available and our fiscal disaster unfolds, is that New York State is a place where the generations now in charge have made themselves big promises while shifting the cost to the future. You see the large number of public employees in certain categories, and wonder why so many are needed relative to elsewhere and what is provided in return. What you don't see is the even larger army of retirees, many in their 40s and 50s, who are entitled to everything and to pay nothing, no matter what. Any young person moving to, and anyone opening a business without a special tax deal in, New York, is setting themselves up to be a victim. Seemly acting under some kind of personal compulsion, they will not stop grabbing until there is nothing left.
My next posts using 2007 Census of Governments data will come when finance phase data is released next summer. Using the less geographically detailed data available annually, one can find 2006 finance data for the United States, New York City, the rest of New York State (subtracted from the state total), and New Jersey attached to this post. I’ve also attached a couple of employment spreadsheets I whipped up to send to friends in places I haven’t covered in posts on Room 8, one on the major counties in coastal California, a second on Oklahoma and the Denver area. One can create one’s own table for many other areas using the big spreadsheet attached to this post.