State and local government employees in New York, New Jersey and Washington earn the highest salaries, according to a new Census Bureau report.

The average monthly earnings for a government worker in New York were $6,069 in March 2013, when the data for the census report was compiled. Those in New Jersey earned $4,888, and those in D.C. earned $4,849 on average. State and local government workers in South Dakota earned the least: a monthly average of $2,540. North Dakota was next, followed by Idaho. In both, workers earned an average of just over $2,700 a month.

The earnings data from the report, published Friday, does not include federal employee earnings by state, but it does include the federal government in its overall accounting of payroll for March. Federal, state and local government employees raked in $87.9 billion in March 2013. The federal payroll — the smallest of the three — declined 2.2 percent from the year before, while the state and local government payroll swelled by 1.6 and 0.2 percent, respectively.

Overall, employment among all three levels of government dropped about 0.9 percent to 21.8 million employees in March 2013 from the year before. Local governments accounted for about 63 percent of all government employment, while state governments accounted for 24 percent. The federal government accounted for just over 12 percent of government employment. (The numbers add up to 99 percent because each was rounded–down in each case–to the nearest whole number.)

About half — 10.9 million — of all government employees worked in education. Nearly 6 percent work in hospitals, while 5.5 percent work in police protection.