Government continues to be the major beneficiary of federal stimulus funds, both in jobs funded and funds received. The most recent New Mexico data show that of the 4,582 stimulus-funded jobs reported for the last quarter of 2009, 65% were with government entities. The zip code for the state capitol received 72% of the all the funds allocated for the entire state.

The 3d Congressional District, which includes the large public sector employers in Santa Fe and Los Alamos, claimed over 70% of all the jobs funded by the federal stimulus. The 1st Congressional District, which includes Albuquerque, was reported as having the fewest stimulus funded jobs, only 642.5, or 14%. The 2d Congressional District fared only slightly better, with 700.5 jobs funded, or 16% of the total for the state.

The data overstates the impact in the state capitol’s 87501 zip code because all the education jobs funded for the state are reported as coming through the New Mexico Education Department, which has its main office in that zip code. But the fact that about 2/3 of the jobs funded are in the public sector holds true across the state.

Please note that these are NOT jobs “created or saved.”  The federal government has abandoned attempting to measure the impact of the stimulus by that standard.  These are jobs that are “funded,” meaning they may be preexisting jobs in state government now funded in whole or part by federal funds, or even jobs receiving a raise in compensation that is funded by stimulus dollars.

These figures were calculated from data provided at recovery.gov., the U.S. government’s official website for tracking stimulus spending and its employment impacts.

The number of jobs funded in the government sector comes from the January 29, 2010, press release from the NM Office of Recovery and Reinvestment.

As we previously reported, the number of funded jobs reported for New Mexico dropped 13% from the third to fourth quarters of 2009, while the cost of each job soared over 50% to $484,505 each. At the same time, the unemployment rate in NM reached 8.3%, in the 4Q 2009, a sharp increase from the previous quarter’s level of 7.8% and far above the level a year ago, when unemployment was at  4.7%.

The public sector bias in the stimulus impact for New Mexico matches results elsewhere, particularly at the federal level.   The Washington Examiner summarizes the latest employment numbers:

The number of new jobs is actually declining. Total nonfarm payroll employment, for example, dipped by an additional 20,000 positions after a December decline of 150,000 positions. The unemployment rate the day Obama took office last year stood at 7.6 percent and 134.6 million people had jobs. When he signed the economic stimulus, Obama promised the bill would bolster the economy sufficiently to keep unemployment below 8.0 percent. But the unemployment rate has exceeded 8.0 percent since last fall, and total employment stands at only 129.5 million.

But the news is much better in the public sector:

[A]mong the few sectors of the economy showing net employment growth over the past year is the federal government. The federal civil service is rapidly expanding as Obama increases the size of government, with 33,000 new positions being added in January alone. Only 9,000 of those new slots were for temporary census jobs. In other words, what we are seeing is good times for the public sector and the growing prospect of a continuing and perhaps even deepening recession for everybody else.