Community Corner

Map: What Section of Town Has the Most Government Workers?

The map below shows a snapshot across town of the percentage of people working for the government.

Newscruncher is a daily series that breaks down the characteristics of your town by the numbers. You can see more posts by clicking the Newscruncher link above the headline or by checking out our weekend roundups. If you see any technical issues with this map, or if you'd like to suggest ideas for future Newscruncher articles, please email data@patch.com.

The map above shows a snapshot across town of the percentage of people working for the government.

Government workers' sense of job satisfaction is at its lowest point since 2010, according to a recently released survey.

According to the survey, which was taken before the government shutdown this fall, federal workers faced with pay freezes and furloughs were tired of "current policies and practices affecting agency operations and resources."

That frustration was probably aggravated by last month’s shutdown, which reportedly will cost the government $2 billion in back pay and led to 6.6 million days of lost work.

The data in this map are from the United States Census Bureau's 2011 American Community Survey. These values are an estimate for 2011 taking into account 60 months of collected data. You can learn more about the survey here.

Using your cursor, you can hover over any census tract – the geographic region defined by the U.S. Census – and see in the box in the upper right hand corner of the map the percentage of people working for the government.

What do you think explains the differences across town of the percentage of people working for the government? Tell us in a comment or a blog post.


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