Want to work in a field that has more than quadrupled in size since 1960?
Consider being a regulator for the federal government. Even during the last
recession, the regulatory agencies were hiring.
In 2015, the U.S. government employed more than 277,000 regulators. To put
that number in perspective, it’s 50,000 more workers than General Motors Co.
employs throughout the
entire world.
We’ve all heard of the regulatory agencies that constitute the “fourth
branch” of government. It has cost our economy over $100 billion
during the Obama administration.
But it wasn’t always like this. We haven’t always lived in a world where
unelected bureaucrats could fine a man
$55,000 for taking photos of his friend’s art project.
Thankfully, Susan Dudley from George Washington University in Washington,
D.C., and Melinda Warren from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri,
have tracked the
growth of federal regulatory agencies, allowing us to see how we got
into the predicament we’re in now.
Using data from the annual federal budget, Dudley and Warren have recorded
the number of federal regulators and the amount of taxpayer money given to them
for each year since 1960. All monetary figures that they report are in
inflation-adjusted 2009 dollars.
While their data show federal regulation has exploded since 1960, it’s
important to realize that they included only regulatory agencies that
explicitly restrict business transactions in the private sector.
That means the 277,000 regulators they recorded in 2015 didn’t include
anyone from the Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Administration,
Defense Department, or the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services—even
though these agencies account for roughly one-third of all final rulemaking
actions in a typical year.
However, even without these agencies, it’s apparent that the size of
federal regulation is massive compared to what it once was. From 1960 to 2015, the amount of
taxpayer money allocated to federal regulators increased by more than 1,800
percent, from $3.06 billion to $57.05 billion.
The growth of federal regulatory agencies has not been limited to any
particular field or industry.
From 1960 to 2015, the budget of the
Federal Aviation Administration increased from $241 million to $1.36 billion,
the budget of the Comptroller of the Currency increased from $63 million to
$1.13 billion, and the budget of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
increased from $40 million to $286 million. Since its beginning in 1970, the
Environmental Protection Agency added over 10,000 employees to its payroll.
Even when the rest of the country is
doing poorly, the regulators do well.
From 2014 to 2015, the economy grew by only 2.6 percent,
while the regulatory business grew by 4.3 percent. So if you’re looking for
work and the private sector isn’t hiring, you can always try finding work as a
bureaucrat in the industry that never shrinks.
Matthew Andrews is a member of the Young Leaders Program
at The Heritage Foundation.
James Gatos handles regulatory and telecommunications
issues for The Heritage Foundation as a Senior Research Fellow in its Roe
Institute for Economic Policy Studies.
Editor's Note: This piece was originally published by The Daily Signal.