Big Employer (But Not That Big)

With more than 1.8 million civilian employees (not counting postal workers), the federal government is one big employer. But it's not as big as the largest private sector company. That would be Wal-Mart Stores, with more than 2 million employees. And Uncle Sam's workforce pales in comparison to that of state and local government.

The Census Bureau reports that the almost 90,000 state and local governments across the country employed 16.4 million people last year, up 4.5 percent from 2002. The biggest areas of employment were education (8.8 million), hospitals (989,000), police protection (933,000) and corrections (731,000).