While the private sector has been slowly adding jobs over the past two years, state and local governments have continued to cut jobs. The public sector has lost 657,000 jobs since April 2009, and losses have seemed to speed up in the last three months. Local governments are continuing to cut jobs, outweighing any gains made at the state and federal level. With revenues based mostly on property taxes, local governments have a lower revenue base and few other options. Economists say that it will take another few years before property taxes recover, and in the meantime local governments will continue to struggle.
See "Public Workers Face Continued Layoffs, Hurting the Recovery", Shaila Dewan and Motoko Rich, The New York Times, June 19, 2012