[OldArmy52]

In the Fed govt, civilian employee (non-contractor employees) hiring was frozen to all but current govt employee’s for well over 10 years (in DoD anyway).

So new hires were lower paying contractees generally and the govt employee work force kept getting older (and having more years of work in govt...thus more pay). Lack of new blood. Remember all the articles about the greying of the Fed work force? Young folks just could not get hired into the Fed civil service for many years with small exception.

[tanknetter]

So new hires were lower paying contractees generally and the govt employee work force kept getting older (and having more years of work in govt...thus more pay). Lack of new blood. Remember all the articles about the greying of the Fed work force? Young folks just could not get hired into the Fed civil service for many years with small exception.

That's the situation exactly. Automatic grade and step increases based on time in service ... not on performance.

Bad situation coming for when the Baby Boomers retire. Up-n-coming government managers (12-14s) still make less relative to their private sector managerial counterparts. Result will be an influx of either Liberal nanny-state do-gooders (who are willing to sacrifice salary in return for serving their cause) or incompetants (who can't get jobs elsewhere) into managerial positions.

[cherry]

roundabout reasoning....