The Nation: The Prospering Bureaucrats

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If much of America has been suffering with the economic misfires of Phases I through IV, some Government employees at least have been humming along rather nicely. The U.S. Census Bureau revealed last week that Arlington County, Va., bedroom for much of the Washington bureaucracy, enjoys the highest per capita income (at $5,446) in the nation. A full 37.6% of Arlington's wage earners are federal employees. "When there are bad times in the country, they hire more people in Washington," observes Dr. Kenneth M. Haggerty, an Arlington dentist and acting county board chairman. In terms of income, he points out, Arlingtonians don't have the economic "peaks and valleys" other parts of the country have. Well, at least not the valleys.