Gardner Institute launches research series on economic linkage between the state and federal government

As the federal government reinvents itself through significant policy changes and cost-cutting measures, the economic linkages between Utah and the federal government become more critical to understand. The Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah has launched a research series on the Utah/federal government nexus that is designed to help Utah decision-makers better understand these linkages.

The first data summary in the series presents the Utah nexus for federal employment.

“Federal civilian employees in Utah, as a share of total employees, have been declining over time but especially since 1990,” said Nate Lloyd, director of economic research at the Gardner Institute. “This trend coincides with strong private sector growth in Utah over that time frame, as well as declines in the defense civilian workforce nationwide following the end of the Cold War.”

Key findings from first in the Gardner series include the following:

Size and Composition. Nearly 57,000 federal employees work in Utah, consisting of non-defense civilian employees (nearly 22,000), defense civilian employees (about 19,000) and military personnel (roughly 16,000). Most federal employees in Utah work for the Department of Defense (primarily Hill Air Force Base), the Department of Treasury (primarily Internal Revenue Service), the U.S. Postal Service and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Ranking Among States. Utah’s share of federal jobs to total jobs ranks 14th among U.S. states at 2.4 percent when excluding the military and 23rd (at 3.3 percent) when including military employment. Compared with sectors of a similar size in Utah, this ranks slightly higher than the information sector but below the wholesale trade sector.

Location. Federal employees are heavily concentrated along the Wasatch Front. Non-Wasatch Front and rural worksites exist for the U.S. Postal Service, National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management, among other agencies. As a share of each county’s overall employment, federal civilian jobs are highest in Daggett County (13.2 percent) and Davis County (10.1 percent), while the lowest in Summit County (0.2 percent) and Utah County (0.4 percent).

Other topics in coming reports in the series include defense, travel and tourism, federal debt and deficit and federal lands. They will be released in the next several weeks.

The complete data summary can be accessed through the Gardner Institute website, gardner.utah.edu.