State and Local Government Employment

From the Census:

 Education, hospitals, and police protection constitute the largest functional categories of state and local governments. In March 2021, 12.6 million people were employed on a full- or part-time basis in a capacity related to these functions. The remaining 6.2 million employees worked in other functional categories. Education, the single largest functional category for state and local government (which includes elementary and secondary, higher, and other education), employed 10.5 million people. Among those public education employees, 7.8 million worked at the local government level, primarily in elementary and secondary education. State governments employed another 2.7 million education employees, mostly in higher education. The next largest functional category, hospitals, employed 1.1 million state and local government employees. Of those employees, 0.7 million worked at the local government level, and 0.5 million worked at the state government level. Police protection, which includes people with power of arrest as well as other police support staff, accounted for 1.0 million workers for state and local governments. Local level governments employed 0.9 million of all police protection workers, and 0.1 million worked at the state government level.