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Washington's Wealth Boom
Take a look at this map. The areas shaded in red are the 100 wealthiest counties in America according to per capita income. At first glance, it's a little misleading, because in the American West, counties tend to be larger in geographic area. But look closely, and you'll see that after the New York City metropolitan area, the largest cluster of wealth in the U.S. is huddled around Washington, D.C.

If we look at household income, the picture grows starker. After the 2000 Census, the richest county in America was Douglas County, Colorado. By 2007, Douglas County had fallen to sixth. The new top three are now Loudon County, Virginia; Fairfax County, Virginia; and Howard County, Maryland. All three are suburbs or exurbs of Washington, D.C. In 2000, 14 of the 100 richest counties were in the Washington, D.C., area. In 2007, it was nine of the richest 20....

...As for federal employees, according to the Bureau of Labors Statistics, as of January 2007, there were 284,000 federal employees living in the Washington, D.C. area, up from 268,000 in 2000. The Cato Institute's Chris Edwards estimates that in 2005, the average federal employee made $106,579 per year including benefits, about twice as much as the average person makes in the private sector. Federal wage are also rising at about twice the rate they are in the private sector.

What about contractors?New York University's Paul C. Light estimates about 7.6 million people earned their paycheck through federal government contracts in 2005, a 50 percent increase since 2002. That increase in contractors doesn't seem to be trimming the number of full-time government jobs, either. The civil service workforce increased over that period, too, though not nearly as dramatically. Taxpayers paid $400 billion to federal contractors in 2007, double what they paid in 2000. Less than half those contracts were won with competitive bidding....