In his latest Washington Examiner piece, Michael Barone tells us that public-sector employees have a more positive view of the economic future than their private-sector counterparts:

It sounds like public- and private-sector employees are looking at different Americas. And they are.

Private-sector employment peaked at 115.8 million in December 2007, when the recession officially began. It was down to 108.5 million last November. That’s a 6 percent decline.

Public-sector employment peaked at 22.6 million in August 2008. It fell a bit in 2009, then has rebounded back to 22.5 million in November. That’s less than a 1 percent decline.

This is not an accident; it is the result of deliberate public policy. About one-third of the $787 billion stimulus package passed in February 2009 was directed at state and local governments, which have been facing declining revenues and are, mostly, required to balance their budgets.

The policy aim, Democrats say, was to maintain public services and aid. The political aim, although Democrats don’t say so, was to maintain public-sector jobs — and the flow of union dues to the public employees unions that represent almost 40 percent of public-sector workers.