PoliGraph: Emmer's employment claim accurate

Posted at 12:00 PM on August 13, 2010 by Catharine Richert (12 Comments)
Filed under: Campaign 2010, PoliGraph

A hallmark of Republican Tom Emmer's campaign for governor will be his case for smaller government.

Emmer's website says one of the shortcomings of big government is that it's replaced private sector jobs with public sector jobs.

"Today, an expansive and expensive state government has crippled our business environments and lost our greatest resource - our people," he writes. "The state's largest employers are now the State of Minnesota, our public university systems, and the federal government."

For the most part, Emmer's claim about the state's largest employers is true. His underlying point that Minnesota's economy has suffered due to the expansion of government is the source of never-ending debate among economists, and is far too complex to sort out in this investigation.

The Evidence

Emmer's campaign points to a recent study compiled by Twin Cities Business magazine, which annually ranks the state's largest employers.

The state of Minnesota is ranked first, employing 54,900 people.

The next largest employer is the Mayo Clinic, which has 37,318 people on its payroll. In third place is the federal government, which has 32,637 employees, followed by Target Corporation with 28,119 employees.

The University of Minnesota, which gets only 18 percent of its budget from the state, is in fifth place with 25,976 employees. It's important to note that the U of M is not part of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System, which employs about 19,500 full-and-part time workers. All told, that's 45,476 employees.

So, the entire public higher education system, which is what Emmer is talking about, ranks second.

The Verdict

While it's important to note that jobs at the universities and in government are mixed with plenty of private sector positions at the Mayo Clinic and Target, Emmer is correct that the state, schools and the federal government are among the largest employers in Minnesota.

Sources

Emmer for Governor, Bringing Back the Jobs Government Scared Off, accessed Aug. 11, 2010

Twin Cities Business Magazine, Largest Employers - Top 25, accessed Aug. 11, 2010-08-11

Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, Facts about the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system, accessed Aug. 11, 2010

Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, Breaking Down the Recession's Impact, by Kyle Uphoff, accessed Aug. 11, 2010

Minneapolis Star Tribune, Minnesota jobless rate dips to 6.8% for June, by Dee DePass, July 15, 2010

The University of Minnesota, Strategic Reductions Key to Balanced Budget, July 22, 2010

Interview, David Strom, Research Director, Emmer for Governor, Aug. 11, 2010

More

The Humphrey Institute

Comments (12)

PoliGraph: Emmer's employment claim accurate, but likely deliberately misleading.

Fixed that for you.

Posted by Neil | August 13, 2010 12:29 PM

And all these jobs are a bad thing because....... ?

Posted by EAR | August 13, 2010 12:46 PM

And in the past, the state's largest employers were?

Emmer makes this sound like this is a relatively recent change. But one data point does not prove a trend. Until he can show a plethora of large employers who have been overshadowed by the state, he's just anti-government for the sake of being anti-government.

Yes, we did have a lot of manufacturing jobs in this state, and we have many fewer of them, especially in large companies. We no longer have US Steel in Duluth, Minneapolis-Moline in Hopkins & Minneapolis.

We do, on the other hand, have a lot of smaller firms that provide non-manufacturing services (not all of which are low paying "service sector" jobs). You're not going to find many companies with 8,000 software developers working three shifts, like the factories of past years.

But those 1000 software developers are doing very nicely in comparison to a factory job.

So with the demise of what large manufacturing we had, and the rise of smaller high-tech companies, it's not really a surprise that these state entities are the largest employers.

Another interesting question to ask: what percentage of the total labor force is represented by these entities? Has that percentage changed much over time? If it hasn't, then there's really not much argument left for Tom Emmer.

It doesn't matter much if the private sector employers are big or small if the public sector fraction remains relatively stable.

Posted by david zuhn | August 13, 2010 1:21 PM

MinnPost's David Brauer points out via Twitter that Mayo is the third largest employer in the state, not the feds:

"Isn't Mayo (which Emmer did not name in top 3) ahead of feds (which he did)? He said "largest" not "some of."

When researching and writing this story, I considered this as well. Ultimately, I did not think that Emmer's claim merited an "Inconclusive" rating, which is saved for comments that are taken out of context or gloss over significant facts.

(On another rating system, such as PolitiFact's, this might have been a solid Mostly True)

To point out this nuance, I wrote at the end, "While it's important to note that jobs at the universities and in government are mixed with plenty of private sector positions at the Mayo Clinic and Target, Emmer is correct that the state, schools and the federal government are among the largest employers in Minnesota."

Posted by Catharine Richert | August 13, 2010 2:09 PM

It's a very misleading statement! For example:

Say the government employs 2 workers, and there are 5 thousand companies that each employ 1 person. Who is the largest employer? ... The government!!! Does that mean government is too big? Of course not.

I think it's much better to have a diversity of smaller employers than a few huge corporations.

Posted by Josh | August 13, 2010 2:40 PM

The fact that Poligraph is weighing in on the accuracy of these numbers shows how much of the news media just automatically accepts the premises of Republicans' arguments, in this case, that it's a bad thing to have a lot of government and education jobs.

Two points about the way Republicans are always talking about how bad it is to have government jobs:

1.) They're hypocrites. Pawlenty's administration employs dozens, if not hundreds, of political appointees and other cronies, mostly in upper management, mostly unnecessary. And they've cronied their way into the lower ranks, too, with qualified people being passed over for the likes of an assistant commissioner's nephew.

2.) Republicans (and other government-worker-haters) have been in power for a couple decades now. If they were right about either the NEED to reduce the size of government, or the ABILITY to do so, there would have been all kinds of restructuring and consolidating and reforming the way state government operates during this time, and that hasn't happened.

If Pawlenty (and his friends) were so down on "big govenment," why haven't they made it smaller while they've been in power?

Posted by Jamie | August 13, 2010 2:48 PM

OMG!! I just took a closer look at the sources for this "analysis." Two "Emmer for Governor" sources!! Are you kidding me?!?!

Posted by Jamie | August 13, 2010 2:55 PM

Hi Jamie,

I just wanted to weigh in here and explain sourcing on this claim.

The first "Emmer for Governor" claim is simply a link to the statement being checked; it's important for readers to see where this stuff comes from!

The second "Emmer for Governor" source indicates that we contacted the campaign to back up their claim with documentation. This is standard operating procedure for every PoliGraph story. We do additional research beyond what the campaign provides.

Thanks for reading!

Posted by Catharine Richert | August 13, 2010 3:26 PM

Emmer's claim is more or less factual (May vs federal gov't notwithstanding). However, the point he is trying to make is misleading. His issue is the size of govt, as opposed to...the private sector! Looks like the public universities and the state gov't together employ roughly 100,000. Add in county and local govt employees and you get some number, don't know what.

But this should be compared not to only one or two large corporations, as is done in his statements, but instead to "private sector jobs." How many of those are there? Several hundred thousand? A million?

He makes a semi-correct statement but it doesn't really support his case - it merely incites fear among his base. Typical.

Posted by Kevin Shannon | August 14, 2010 7:17 AM

Kudos to Kevin ... you are correct ... this is a straw-man argument.

As such, Mr. Emmer needs to tell the voters what functions he will sell off (why did Pawlenty want to acquire Vermillon State Park? didn't he consider that would require state employees to be involved) ... instead of competing with private business maybe the state should bow out ( state colleges have about 19,000 employees ... should some or all be closed?) ... Is the state being too responsible (how long should criminals be held at Moose Lake, etc.). Historically, Departments of Natural Resources, Corrections, and Transportations are the largest employers ... if there is cuts to be made ... those would be the areas most likely to be affected.

IMO, the state has functions that they probably perform the best and at the lowest cost, yet there is no doubt some areas that could be more efficient ... but as Jamie commented, Pawlenty and Emmer have had seven plus years to make these changes... since they have not, maybe there are reason why ?

Where are the 54,900 state employees and what functions do they perform ? Has this risen or decreased during the Pawlenty years. There is generally turnover in many jobs through retirement and volutary separation ... has Pawlenty taken advantage to reduce employment ? What is the mix between managers and workers ?

Emmer has made an observation ... nothing more ... but Mr. Emmer needs to provide a lot more detail than just observing that the state employes a lot of people. It's not the number of people involved ... it's the functions that are being done and the cost to perform them.

Lastly, once Mr. Emmer defines his changes, will Minnesota be a better place to live ?

Posted by Minnesota Central | August 14, 2010 12:11 PM

Just want to weigh in and say I don't have a problem with what Catherine's rating.

I'm not a fan of Poligraph's three-point system - basically, true, inconclusive, or false - but were I trapped in it, I'd pick the same label she did.

HOWEVER, I do think Emmer is eliding the truth when he tells audiences, in effect, Minnesota's 3 largest employers are government concerns. He's close to the truth, but doesn't seem to trust it enough to be truly accurate.

Seems a small thing to say "three of the four biggest" or "with the exception of Mayo." I know, politics, but we in the media should be tough because otherwise, pols go even further down Distortion Way.

Posted by David Brauer | August 14, 2010 1:37 PM

Rather than just fact-checking a mostly truthful comment used to prove a lie, we should look at the history here. Emmer wants us to believe that he will cut government by 20%-33% if only Republicans can take over.

However, Republicans controlled the State House, governor's office, U.S. Congress, U.S. Senate, and Presidency in 2002-2003. According to the Minnesota Management and Budget department, that year set a fifteen year record for the largest increase in the size of state government that is still unbroken today. On a federal level, Republicans have an even worse spending record under both Bushes and Reagan. There is no record that Republicans have EVER cut spending or even slowed it slightly after they take a majority.

Posted by Colin | August 16, 2010 10:39 AM

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