The job satisfaction question was asked as follows: On the whole, how satisfied are you with
the work you do—would you say you are very satisfied, moderately satisfied, a little dissatisfied,
or very dissatisfied? (satjob). For the analysis reported here, this job satisfaction question was
dichotomized into 1 = satisfied (very/moderately) and 0 = dissatisfied (a little/very) to facilitate
interpretation of the results as well as extrapolation to the U.S. population (as will be explained
below). To identify government workers, the following dichotomous question from the GSS is
used: Are you employed by the federal, state or local government—or by a private employer
(including nonprofit organizations)? (wrkgovt). Unfortunately, it is not possible with the GSS
data to make any distinctions among types of government employees, both because of the limitations
of the government employment question (which lumps together federal, state, and local
government) and because of the limited size of the sample of government workers.