This chart is designed to show increases in the number of governmental employees at the federal, state, and local level from 1942 until 1997. The X-axis represents years; the Y-axis represents number of employees. The number of employees in local government has increased most rapidly from fewer than 2 million in the 1940s to 12 million in the 1990s. State government employment has grown steadily as well, from fewer than 1 million in the 1940s to more than 4 million in the 1990s. Federal government civilian employment has been relatively flat since the 1940s with only minor ups and downs.