Probably since the dawn of settled society, there have been people who found some way to live off the labor of others. Even hunter-gatherer populations had some freeloading, as some members of the group would be less productive than others. Settled society made freeloading a bit easier. Settled life required rules, which required enforcement and that meant government. Even the most streamlined administrations had extras and hangers-on, who figured out how to game the system so they could get paid to do nothing.
In modern America, government is a form of workfare for the most part. There are roughly 2.8 million Federal workers, not including uniformed personnel. When you add in state and local government, there are roughly 22 million people employed by government in the United States. The labor force is roughly 150 million so that means 15% of the nation’s workers are employed by government. Of course, literally no one knows the size of the contract workforce. The best guess is about 5 million, but it could be much more.
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