Public Workers, Local Government | featured news

A radical plan to slash public employee pension benefits gets voted on by the residents of Silicon Valley's San Jose on Tuesday - a decision that could set an important precedent for many other cities, not only in California but across the nation.

When a reader asked us whether “Red” (Republican) states accounted for more job losses than “Blue” (Democratic) states during Obama’s presidency, we decided to investigate. We used Bureau of Labor Statistics data and the help of the incomparable Lori Williams at Tableau Software. We make no judgment about whether reductions in state and local government jobs are justified--some readers might believe state budgets are bloated--but simply want to explore what has happened in the past three years.