Exciting News: There Are No Longer Any ‘Underrepresented Groups’ in the Federal Workforce!

The Washington Post’s “Federal Diary” column this week quotes Gilbert Sandate, chairman of the Coalition for Fairness for Hispanics in Government: “Hispanics continue to be the only underrepresented group in the federal workforce.” And, Mr. Sandate will be happy to learn, it turns out that Hispanics are not underrepresented either! 

True, the Post column says that Hispanics account “for about 8 percent of the total civilian federal workforce, according to the Office of Personnel Management. That’s well below the 13.2 percent of Hispanics in the national civilian labor force, according to Labor Department statistics.”

But wait: With only limited exceptions, you have to be a U.S. citizen to be a federal civilian employee. And, among adult Latinos in our workforce, it looks like no more than 60 percent are U.S. citizens (this makes the overgenerous assumption that all Latinos over 18 are in the workforce). So instead of 13.2 percent-versus-8 percent, the comparison should be 60 percent of 13.2 percent equals 7.9 percent-versus-8 percent. Which means that Hispanics are actually overrepresented among federal employees!

And the good news doesn’t stop there. This means that anyone in the federal government whose EEO job depends on there being underrepresentation of this or that group can now be given leave to join the private sector — regardless of their race, ethnicity, or sex!