Data show New Mexico’s government workforce is large, well-paid

Scott Moody over at Key Policy Data puts together a variety of data on states and government employment. He recently posted some data on New Mexico at his blog.

For starters, New Mexico has an extremely large number of government workers state and local workers relative to those in the private sector (this doesn’t even include federal workers and contractors).

Our government workers are relatively well-compensated:

These and other data calculated by Moody lead New Mexico to have the 5th-least productive government workforce in the nation. The next time some advocate for bigger government claims that New Mexico’s government workforce has been “cut to the bone” or that taxes need to be raised, perhaps this data will come in handy.