Dome of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. (AP)
Nearly 3 in 10 employed adults (29.2 percent) who work for the government live in the District of Columbia, said Gallup. In Alaska, 28 percent of the population works for the government, and in Hawaii the percentage is 27.8 percent.
Following the top three were:
Maryland, 25.5 percent of population is government workers
Virginia, 22.8 percent
New Mexico, 21.8 percent
West Virginia, 20.8 percent
Louisiana, 19.9 percent
Mississippi, 19.1 percent
Washington, 19.0 percent
For contrast, the states with the lowest percentage of government workers – federal, state, local – were as follows:
Indiana, 11.5 percent
Pennsylvania, 11.7 percent
Missouri, 12.4 percent
Minnesota, 12.6 percent
Michigan, 12.7 percent
Vermont, 12.9 percent
New Hampshire, 13 percent
Ohio, 13.4 percent
Utah, 13.5 percent
Nebraska, 13.8 percent
Gallup’s results were based on a series of random phone surveys conducted among 200,225 U.S. adult workers between Jan. 1- Dec. 31, 2012. The percentages are averages of workers’ employment at the time they were surveyed and include those employed by federal, state, or local governments.
Margins of error for individual states are no more than 6 percentage points, although Gallup notes that most states are within 3 points of the margin of error.