Posted on 02/21/2013 3:31:23 PM PST by SkyPilot
The Defense Department on Wednesday officially notified Congress that it plans to begin furloughing its 800,000 civilian employees across the country if automatic spending cuts begin March 1, estimating the states would lose a total of $4.86 billion in workers’ wages this year.
According to Pentagon estimates, among the hardest-hit states would be Virginia, which would have about 88,000 affected workers and salary losses of $660.9 million; California, with 62,600 workers and $419.7 million in lost wages; and Maryland, with 45,700 workers and $359.3 million in lost earnings.
“This is not a Beltway phenomenon,” Jessica L. Wright, the acting undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, told reporters at the Pentagon. “More than 80 percent of our civilians work outside of the D.C. metro area. They live and work in every state of the union.”
Under the furlough plan, civilian workers would be forced to take one day of unpaid leave each week for 22 weeks from late April through September, costing them about 20 percent of their pay during that time, Pentagon officials said.
In a written message, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told civilian workers that they “will be provided at least 30 days’ notice prior to executing a furlough and your benefits will be protected to the maximum extent possible.”
He added that the Pentagon “also will work to ensure that furloughs are executed in a consistent and appropriate manner.”
Mr. Panetta noted that the department has been funded by a continuing resolution that has limited spending to 2012 levels and said the effects of sequestration may be felt more intensely because of it.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
I can't tell you precisely where I work but I am definitely seeing the effects of the threat of sequester for about the past month.
Right now nothing is being purchased. No one is traveling. Lots of weapons systems on the chopping block.
There has to be a better way.
Not all of the DOD civilian work force is union. No one where I work is a part of a union.
You really are clueless.
Can you not see that some of us view the jobs we do in supporting the Soldier every bit as seriously as the man who straps on a gun and goes after the Taliban?
Is your head really that far up your posterior?
That destruction is still in full force. Obama managed to launch the genesis of taking over the health care system in this nation as well, which will not only makes us all further slaves to the government, but will result in further economic misery. I know several people who are now on starvation hours because their companies are cutting back hours to avoid the ObamaCare penalties.
But even in this hostile economic climate, companies still had some discretion in how they handled the pain (which government mainly caused). They were, and are, still private companies.
The Dept of Defense is a wholly government "owned" institution. It has its waste, its inefficiencies, its cads, and its heroes.
As far as government agencies, it is the largest, but also the best. Name one other agency that will respond on a moment's notice to national and international acts of war, terror, and disaster on such a scale as to make a difference for our nation and the world?
There isn't one.
That one, noble institution is now under full scale assault.
Myself, I think we are actually in a Depression that is masked by debt and Food Stamps (EBT cards).
If you removed the latter, you would see people lining up outside of soup kitchens in every city as we had in the 1930s. I have worked in our soup kitchens of today - and business is booming. Trust me. I went to our local mall on a Friday night, and 1/3rd of the stores were boarded up and the food court had a handful of people there.
It was simply amazing.
The way out of this is not to destroy 2 million more jobs almost overnight and layoff hundreds of thousands more so we can make a political posture point about "cutting spending" when in reality entitlements are exploding and we won't touch those.
Industry: sequestration would cut 2 million American jobs
My small military retirement will be affected if they revise the Social Security COLA so that is calculated to a new chained CPI. Fine - I will take that sacrifice - as long as there are other reforms to entitlements as well (raising the age of Medicare to 66 or 67 for instance).
But no one in America (or even FR) today is acting rationally. Obama has divided us, and fear seems to be the rule.
A furlough is not a termination. These people will still have jobs even though the government really doesn't have any money to pay them. In the private sector when there is no money to pay the employees they don't get furloughs, they get fired.
The problem with any cuts in federal spending is that someone's ox needs to be gored.
If we don't start cutting then we have no future. I think all federal workers should be furloughed. The alternative is to fire them or go bankrupt.
You speak truth.
Not true. There are lots of people that get laid off and rehired when things pick up (cf the construction industry).
This is a calculated; more cloward piven if you ask me.
Anyone want to bet when the pink slips go out the media will gleefully report un-employment DOWN?
I took a $10K cut when I went from industry to the govt
And Govt employees get Cadillac pensions
And my retirement is a bit less gerseous. Of course that's just one data point.
It’s called life and we folks in the private sector deal with situations like layoffs and paycuts EVERYDAY!!!
A TOTAL crock. Unemployment is 8 percent. Hardly anybody is unemployed percentage wise. Stop being a drama queen. 100 percent employment is considered 4 percent.
Do you believe that only 8% of the nation is unemployed?
I’m one of the people who (probably) would be furloughed one day a week. DO IT. (see tagline)
I believed that 4 percent were under President Bush. Never was questioned about it then. I can’t see why were being questioned now.
Since I’ve learned how unemployment is calculated, I don’t believe the 4% figure back then either.
My daughter is a DOD civilian. She’s been on three deployments. I am a retired DoD civilian. As a civilian, I went to Vietnam, Panama, Iraq, Iran, inter Alia. I also did four years active duty. Let’s go easy on DoD civilians, guys. We’re not all bean counters
I recognize Skypilots writings and syntax. I know who this is. For crying out loud, McCain, if you are going to advocate for wasteful spending just attach your name to it. You’re an elected public servant. :-)
We have been told that the furlough days cannot be contiguous.
IOW, if the days are contiguous, then unemplyment can be collected. B/c of the way they are handling this, no unemployment can be collected.
An extra turn of the screw.
They have done all of that and they really need the DOD civilians. They need shooters out in the filed not at home station. The times you are talking about no longer exist. The AF used to be 900,000+ but now it’s around 300,000+ with more deployments and the same or bigger workload.
Sure programs can be cut and we did give them suggestions a year ago, they got almost 10,000 ideas to make cuts but never used any of them.
I don't see one day a week lost as being onerous. Their insurance and benefits contine without concern.
This is completely on the Dems. I see no issues from your words.
If you worked for a private company, you might be getting a 25% furlough, otherwise known as “converted to part-time pay for Obamacare”.
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