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U.S. Pays $400 Million in Bonuses to Federal Employees
biggovernment .com ^ | June 14, 2010 | Publius

Posted on 06/14/2010 6:39:17 PM PDT by PROCON

The Obama Administration handed out more than $400 million in awards to federal employees last year, up by more than $80 million from the prior year, according to new government data.

The biggest winners were air traffic controllers and top managers in Washington, a review of fiscal year 2009 salary reports from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management showed.

OPM’s data, obtained by the Asbury Park Press through a freedom of information request, account for 1.3 million employees, or about 65 percent of the federal civilian work force.

(Excerpt) Read more at biggovernment.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: democrats; economy; employees; federal; federalemployees; government; lping; obama; public
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To: muawiyah

That is FERS.


41 posted on 06/14/2010 7:20:12 PM PDT by USNBandit (sarcasm engaged at all times)
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To: ODC-GIRL

Plenty of “non-military” federal employees deserve their bonuses and benefits. For example, although I was not a DOD civilian, I spent most of last year in Afghanistan.


42 posted on 06/14/2010 7:21:56 PM PDT by Poundstone
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To: Rio
An average $200 bonus isn't all that big ~ anywhere ~ but federal employees consider such things "found money".

It's good to get, but they didn't plan on it.

43 posted on 06/14/2010 7:22:23 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: All

I want a “block” feature on FR. : (


44 posted on 06/14/2010 7:24:25 PM PDT by anniegetyourgun
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To: PROCON
I recommend that recipients of these bonuses use this taxpayer-funded windfall to max out their unemployment and life insurance policies.


Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

45 posted on 06/14/2010 7:28:02 PM PDT by The Comedian (Evil can only succeed if good men don't point at it and laugh.)
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To: PROCON

Fire all the bas*ar*s! From the President on down. Then we can start over again.


46 posted on 06/14/2010 7:28:08 PM PDT by Wpin ("I Have Sworn Upon the Altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny...")
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To: K-oneTexas; muawiyah
(and most government jobs involve working on projects stretching over decades, so you can't just replace them at the drop of a hat).

The private sector seems to be able to do this without undue difficulty.

Senior people leave all the time for better pay. The companies have to either promote a junior person to take on the project or hire someone.

Government jobs attract lifers; people who want the security, stability and retirement benefits of a government job.

The government does not need bonuses to keep its people.

47 posted on 06/14/2010 7:29:39 PM PDT by Pontiac
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To: Poundstone

“$400 million is a tiny amount. Federal employees’ award amounts are a much smaller percentage of their benefit outlays than anything you find in the private sector.”

The basta*ds don’t deserve any bonus do they? They deserve 30% pay cuts and 50% benefit cuts...but you understand that don’t you?

This rotten government has to go!


48 posted on 06/14/2010 7:31:51 PM PDT by Wpin ("I Have Sworn Upon the Altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny...")
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To: USNBandit
FERS had a "displacement" when it was set up. The FERS system is actually designed to pay out exactly what CSRS would pay out, but it has the extra "thrift savings" matching plan. What you are doing there is front loading your retirement by putting a certain amount into an investment trust, which is matched to a degree by the government.

You can put in more, but that's the same as the old CSRS system folks get to do as well ~ but they don't get matching funds.

The result is you pay just as much for your retirement as CSRS folks did (and still do), but part of it is in an investment trust which you can manipulate to a certain degree, or BORROW FROM.

Supposedly funds are transferred out of the agency operating budget to OPM to be placed in US bonds to cover the other half of your retirement.

When you take a good look at the federal payout to CSRS retirees you quickly find that nearly 100% of the payout is coming from ONLY the funds paid in by the employees. It'll be the same with FERS. Part of the trick is that over the long run putting federal retirement money into federal bonds is fairly advantageous.

BTW, the FERS folks also pay into Social Security. Presumably they will receive Social Security in the future ~ which is highly doubtful. An argument can be made that as a consequence FERS retirement is far more costly and pays less than the old CSRS system.

Way back when I wrote an elaborate program to estimate the difference between staying in CSRS or transferring to FERS. Turned out that at my age and years of service the only way I could lose would be for the rate of inflation to rise to untold heights thus accentuating the COLA differential ~ FERS was initially set up at 1/2 CSRS COLA, then adjusted to 1% less, and now is the same.

Remarkably few CSRS covered people transferred to FERS.

I transferred.

49 posted on 06/14/2010 7:32:46 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: Poundstone; All
Well, I retired from the federal government last month and am now working for a large multinational corporation. My federal pension is a nice income supplement, I will admit.

Unless that's a military pension, you're a parasite.

And if I have anything to do with it, you'll be destitute within a year, and I'm hoping you'll have to sell your organs to repay the Americans you've sucked dry for these many years.

But that's just me. Some other people are *really* pissed off.


Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

50 posted on 06/14/2010 7:33:40 PM PDT by The Comedian (Evil can only succeed if good men don't point at it and laugh.)
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To: Pontiac
Most government employees (outside the USPS) enter federal service sometime in their mid-thirties ~ almost always in a career specialty area exactly the same as they had in the private sector.

Many actually are hired into ongoing multi-year developmental projects.

You should check on how Department of Defense works sometime. They have an awful lot of systems analysts, computer systems designers, logistics personnel, etc. AS WELL AS war planners, spending their careers "doing stuff" (much of it too secret for you to hear about).

51 posted on 06/14/2010 7:35:57 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: Pontiac
Bonuses aren't used to "keep people". That was a reference to the higher rate of pay offered to federal employees in some metropolitan areas.

Frankly the government should relocate to the suburbs and abandon the downtowns to the federal courts.

52 posted on 06/14/2010 7:38:32 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: USNBandit

BTW, USPS folks pay 10%, so when they retire and it darned near triples to 25% it’s a killer. Other federal retirees find it difficult to believe the impact!


53 posted on 06/14/2010 7:41:50 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: PROCON

The US paid nobody...We the People paid these bonuses...


54 posted on 06/14/2010 7:47:11 PM PDT by mo
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To: anniegetyourgun

Why do the Federal Freepers have no shame? Why do they defend their taking, taking, taking as we in the private sector suffer?

Are Federal workers THAT divorced from the rest of us in day to day experience? So it seems.

Would that some of them, good Freepers, come here on this thread to say they feel shame, or at least understand that as THEY fatten their accounts we are squeezed of every drop of liquid of livelihood?

HAVE THEY NO SHAME????


55 posted on 06/14/2010 7:47:49 PM PDT by bvw
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To: muawiyah
much of it too secret for you to hear about

Total BS.

56 posted on 06/14/2010 7:49:48 PM PDT by bvw
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To: Poundstone

Why are public sector employees getting bonuses at all? I was in the Navy for 13 years and didn’t get a bonus. Want a bonus? Get a job contributing to the economy.


57 posted on 06/14/2010 7:49:58 PM PDT by Doohickey (I try to take my days one at a time, but occasionally several days attack me at once.)
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To: muawiyah
Many actually are hired into ongoing multi-year developmental projects.

Oh, very true. Long term projects that nearly invariably miss their deadlines and are massively over budget (with little or no accountability).

You should check on how Department of Defense works sometime.

The Dept of Defense is huge but it is not the whole of the Federal Government.

I know of a half dozen people who left the private sector to get out of the rat race and in to a secure government job.

58 posted on 06/14/2010 7:52:03 PM PDT by Pontiac
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To: Repeal The 17th

Twenty five years ago, fed engineers, computer and software engineers made less then their civilian counterparts. Any college engineering grad was viewed as a loser if he/she worked for the fed gov because the salaries were substantially lowered then private starting engineering salaries. Furthermore gov salaries grew at a set rate while private salaries can increase several folds based on how the engineer performed in private companies. During the boom years and market demands for certain tech specialties, salaries and enlistment bonuses were very high. Engineers and computer scientists actually jumped from one company to another company based on salary bidding. Private industry has great rewards but it also has many pitfalls. Age discrimination, education gap, off shoring tech jobs to China and India, and usage of H-1B workers have eroded these private salary advantages in engineering. Since the loser grad who took a job in the gov career and salaries increased slowly over time, the private engineers’ salaries went sabertooth as he/she is laid off due to mergers, economic cycle, management changes, and then rehired doing something totally different. As the engineer ages with each laid off/rehired cycle, their private salaries actually get reduced. This depression is making it even worst. On average the private sector engineer 25 years later earn less then their gov sector engineer. Today many of them are banging on the gov doorstep for a job.
The government did not take away the private sector engineers salaries, it was corporate America who took away the aging engineers’ salaries and off shored their jobs with cheaper Chinese/Indian engineers. PS - to have an engineering salary lower then a gov engineers salary is nothing to brag about either, considering what private engineers and computer/sofware engineers made during the 1980 and 1990’s.


59 posted on 06/14/2010 7:52:40 PM PDT by Fee (Peace, prosperity, jobs and common sense)
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To: Pontiac
Good for the people you knew. My job was fairly high pressure ~ had a lot of public contact, and most of it involved people who didn't want to pay very large postage bills.

Still, there were good times ~ like when they got busted down to their ankles and dragged off to the hoosegow! Yeeha!

60 posted on 06/14/2010 7:55:33 PM PDT by muawiyah
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