These conflicted attitudes are nothing new. American history reminds us how much colonists and the nation’s first citizens distrusted the British monarchy, and we know what colonists thought of taxes. While disdain for the public sector is commonplace in the United States, there have been fluctuations over time. Believe it or not, there was a time in America’s history when working in the public sector was thought of as noble and prestigious—something parents wanted for their sons (this was during the early years of the nation, and it was typically only men who worked outside of their home).
But since the latter part of the 20th century through today, we see downward trends in Americans’ attitudes about government (with the notable exception of the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11). Public trust in the federal government continues to hover at near all-time lows, with only 18 percent of Americans saying they can trust government to do what is right (Pew Research Center 2017). These negative attitudes about the public sector might help explain that while 94 percent of millennials want to use their skills to be of service and benefit a social cause, only 7 percent of the federal government workforce is under the age of 30 (Curry 2017).
Application Activity
For our next Application Activity, take a minute and write down your views and perceptions of the public sector. Are your perceptions positive or negative? Next, are you intrigued by the possibility of working in the public sector? Why or why not? Write down your responses. Third, review your perceptions about the public sector. Where do you think these attitudes came from? Were they informed by your friends and family? Direct experiences with the public sector? The news media? Be honest with yourself; you may not even be able to pinpoint where these attitudes come from—most of us probably cannot (your author included!). Now, hold on to these reflections as we explore the origins of these perceptions and attitudes.
Public Sector Misconceptions
It may seem that unpacking public sector misconceptions may not be as productive as telling you how to get an internship or mapping out career paths for you. Don’t worry, we will get to those topics. But before we do, we have to think about the reasons we may be skeptical of the public sector and why those people who are important in our lives may be even more concerned. In the spirit of honesty, it is important to note that most of us actually have positive experiences with the public sector even though we hold the entire sector with little regard (c.f. Charles Goodsell). After all, when was the last time you put something in the mail and worried about it getting to its destination? Or have you ever been concerned that when the trash is put on the curb that it wasn’t going to be picked up by your local municipality?
The first misconception that we have to confront in understanding Americans’ views of the public sector is that most of us fail to differentiate between politicians and civil servants. And since we generally don’t distinguish between them, our disdain for one effects our views of the other. Politicians are those individuals who are elected to hold governmental office, such as the president, members of Congress, governors, state legislators, mayors, county commissioners, and so forth. They get their jobs from the voters, and they have to win elections to keep their jobs. Civil servants, on the other hand, are the unelected individuals who work for government agencies or non profit organizations who carry out the decisions of our elected leaders. They are the ones who provide us public goods and services. These individuals get and retain their jobs because they have demonstrated competence in the area they work in. For example, many of the individuals who work in environmental agencies have training and degrees in environmental and earth sciences, engineering, or even environmental economics. By contrast, members of Congress write environmental legislation and many—or most—do not have this kind of training. Many members have law degrees.
The numbers of the civil servant workforce might astound you. In the United States, there is the federal government, 50 state governments, and just over 89,000 local governments (U.S. Census Bureau 2012). That’s a lot of government entities! According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), there are 2.8 million federal government civil servants, and this figure does not include members of the military. In state and local government agencies, there are another 14.5 million civil servants (U.S. Census Bureau 2016). In the more than 1.4 million non profit organizations in the United States, there are approximately 14.4 million employees (McKeever and Gaddy 2016). With these numbers, you are far more likely to know, and even have family members who are, civil servants than you are to know a politician.
The distinction between politicians and civil servants is important to understanding our perceptions because most Americans do not like (and that’s probably putting it mildly) politicians. So when we think about government, our attitudes about politicians are usually what we think of rather than separating views of politicians from views of civil servants. Pollsters will routinely ask Americans about their views of Democrats and Republicans and the leadership of various elected bodies. And the queries are typically around government broadly, reinforcing the collapsing of the two categories.
Another misconception might be that the people who are civil servants are lazy or incompetent or corrupt. Again, a part of this myth is the conflating of politicians and civil servants—but this is not the place to unpack the realities of elected leaders as we are focused on the rest of the public sector. Who really are civil servants? As indicated above, chances are good that you know some. In my own family, there is a civil servant who works for the U.S. Department of Defense, a public school teacher, a local government sanitation employee, and a USPS employee. Other civil servants I know well range from local government employees, to law enforcement officers, to first responders. And without a doubt, all of these people I know are competent and committed individuals who have chosen careers in the public sector over the private sector because they want to be of service, not because they are looking for a cushy, well-paying job. Despite popular opinion, most government salaries lag behind those of private sector employees (Yoder 2018). And unlike the demographics of politicians, the demographics of civil servants look more like the average American (Goodsell 2015, 81-119). According to the OPM, 57 percent of federal civil servants are men, 43 percent are women. About 37 percent of them identify with a minority ethnic group and 52 percent of them hold a bachelor’s degree or higher (U.S. OPM 2017).
After confronting misconceptions about the public sector and those individuals who work in it, we also need to investigate what our actual experiences with the public sector are and separate out our views of politics and politicians. Charles Goodsell (2015) began unpacking questions about the attitudes we have about government and comparing them to our actual experiences decades ago. In his most recent updates to this research in The New Case for Bureaucracy, he found that despite holding negative views of government, most Americans have positive interactions and experiences with government (41-77). Relying on data from a variety of surveys and interviews with individuals, Goodsell concludes that the actual experiences we have with the public sector are overwhelmingly positive, from the local parks we visit to the snowplowing in the winter to garbage collection and mail delivery.
In light of these discussions, you are probably wondering why there is such a disconnect between our perceptions of the public sector and our actual experiences with it. Political socialization provides a substantial part of the answer to this question. As you might remember, political socialization is the process by which we come to have the beliefs we do about government and its role in society. We are not born with these views or attitudes, rather we learn them over time. Various influences contribute to our socialization, including our family and friends, education, personal experiences, religious affiliations, news media, and popular culture. Consider this last influence: popular culture. Our history as a nation reveals a deep disdain for centralized authority and government; just think about our origin stories associated with breaking free of the tyrannical British government and the colonists’ rebellion over taxes. We have been distrustful of government from the beginning. And now, think about popular music, television programs, and even movies. Can you
