Counting the true number of government employees

Ian Murray tries to track it down, and Kling references his numbers.

Remember these limits.  As near as I can tell, Ian is counting only central government workers.  There exists  additional local and state government workers, and also one must count the total people on government paycheck, meaning social security and government retirees.

The total is likely closer to 50% of the population.  But this is a bit unfair.  We really need a metric that tells us how many government employees that are well matched to electorial power of the citizens.  A state employee in Kentucky is much more responsive to voters than a state employee in California.  So we need an adjustment to account for Hanson's near and far effect.

The whole problem is unmeasurability, we have no way to count things as long as voters are mal proportioned.  I would take Ian's numbers and multiply by 2, getting 34% of the population obtains paychecks from voters with little direct voter participation.  That number is less than the 50%  the total government consumption of GDP.