Just How Big Is the Government?

[Timber Loftis]

I found this today:
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City of Chicago's Top Employers
Rank Name Employees

1. U.S. Government . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78,000
2. Chicago Public Schools. . . . . . . . . . . . . 44,798
3. City of Chicago . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41,911
4. Jewel-Osco. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38,954
5. Cook County . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27,081
6. U.S. Postal Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24,800
7. State of Illinois . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20,465
8. Ameritech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20,000
9. Bank One Corp.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16,750
10. Archdiocese of Chicago. . . . . . . . . . . . . 15,245
11. University of Chicago . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12,965
12. American Airlines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12,670
13. University of Illinois at Chicago . . . . . . . 12,754
14. Chicago Transit Authority . . . . . . . . . . . 10,468
15. Exelon Corp.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,245
16. ABN AMRO Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10,054
17. Rush-Presbyterian St. Luke Medical Center. . . . 8,637
18. AT&T Corp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8,000
19. Loyola University. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7,200
20. Harris Bank. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,193
21. Northern Trust Corp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,160
22. Tribune Co.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,069
23. Anderson Consulting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,986
24. Arthur Anderson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,212

SOURCE: Crain's Chicago Business, April 16, 2001
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Now, we can knock Anderson off the bottom of this list as of 2002, but it still strikes me that 6 out of the 7 largest employers are funded by our tax dollars. Hell, why not just make everyone a government employee if it's such a good idea.