MSNBC analyst tries to mislead about federal workers and gets swift backlash online

A former Obama administration official tried to defend the number of workers employed by the government and was slammed with swift backlash on social media.

Steve Rattner was an adviser to the treasury secretary and currently opines on economic issues on the “Morning Joe” show on MSNBC. He jumped into a debate surrounding federal workers by trying to argue that there was no “bloating” of the federal workforce over the last decades.

‘Rattner’s chart is a convenient application of how to lie with statistics.’

Rattner posted a graph of the percentage of non-farm civilian employees who make up federal workers.

“The share of Americans employed by the government steeply dropped in the decades leading up to 2000 and has remained essentially flat since. A bloating federal workforce is a myth,” he wrote.

The graph shows the percentage drop from about 3.2% in 1960 to about 1.5% in 2000.

He was immediately assailed by many who accused him of offering an incomplete picture of the actual growth of the federal workforce.

“According to recent estimates, the number of federal contract employees is substantial, making up a significant portion of the overall federal workforce. As of 2015, there were approximately 3.7 million contract employees working for the federal gov’t,” replied Gene Epstein of Reason.

“The graph only shows federal civilian employees as a percentage of total non-farm civilian employees, not the absolute number of federal employees or other government workers (e.g., state or local government employees, military personnel, or postal workers, which are excluded),” read one response.

“This graph you provided is a good example how people lie with statistics. The *real* tell is the total cost of those employees,” responded writer Brad Torgersen, with a graph showing the number of workers earning more than $100K increasing every year.

Rob Eno, the media critic for Blaze Media, added another nail to the coffin in Rattner’s argument.

“Rattner’s chart is a convenient application of how to lie with statistics. By zooming out and using a percentage he hides the fact that the federal government civilian workforce grew by 2% in just one year from 2022 to 2023,” said Eno.

He added that the number of federal workers increased by another 2.4% in 2024.

Rattner has previously admitted that the Biden administration failed badly on illegal immigration and predicted that the inflation crisis from 2022 would end in a “hard landing.”

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