Posted on 05/19/2006 4:25:10 PM PDT by lauriehelds
The pay gap between private and public sector employees seems to be a given. Just this week, 10 congressmen made their case for a higher 2007 civilian pay raise than President Bush has requested by citing a 30 percent private-public gap reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
"The federal government may never be able to compete with the private sector, dollar for dollar, but we must ensure that we do not fall further behind in the battle for talent," Reps. Tom Davis, R-Va.; Jon Porter, R-Nev.; Steny Hoyer, D-Md.; Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and others said in a letter to fellow members.
But a new paper from the libertarian Washington-based think tank the Cato Institute argues that the pay gap actually travels in the other direction. Pointedly titled "Federal Pay Outpaces Private-Sector Pay," the paper by Chris Edwards, the institute's director of tax policy studies, makes the case for freezing government salaries.
By bundling federal benefits -- including defined pensions, the Thrift Savings Plan and health care subsidies -- together with wages, Edwards calculated that the average federal worker earned $100,178 in 2004, compared to $51,876 in salary and benefits for the average private-sector worker. Those numbers were based on statistics from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
"The federal civilian workforce has become an elite island of secure and high-paid workers, separated from the ocean of private-sector American workers who must compete in today's dynamic economy," Edwards wrote.
In an interview, Edwards said he is trying to stir the pot on an issue that has no real adversaries. Federal employee unions are so vocal on pay issues, and Washington-area congressmen, including Republicans like Davis, who chairs the Government Reform Committee, are loyal to the many federally employed voters in their districts, Edwards said.
He said he suspects the BLS studies that find such a marked pay gap, and which do not take benefits into account, are flawed.
"There are questions about how these comparisons are done," Edwards said. "If you, say, look at a government lawyer versus a private lawyer, or accountants, the responsibilities and the hours worked per week can be quite radically different."
Most compelling, he argued, is the quit rate for federal employees, which is quite low and suggests that workers are satisfied with their pay.
Edwards said in his paper that some academic studies have found government workers to be overpaid, but his citation is a 1985 study by Steven Venti at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Why did he pull from a 20-year-old study? Because, he said, there has been so much agreement in recent years on the pay gap that no one has bothered to complete an updated independent analysis.
This is probably invisible to the general public.
Federal employees should not be grouped together. Feds in Washington DC for the most part are useless with a few exceptions and they are DoD/NSA/CIA/FBI employees who are working their butts off, with some exceptions even in those agencies. Feds outside DC are a pretty decent group overall.
We have contract employees, they are about the same as Feds. Some are worth their pay, some are not.
In Abe Lincoln's time they used to shut down DC in the summer lest all the people die of disease.
Wow, I can't believe you justifying 4 weeks vacation from the 1860's
Anywhere I have worked in the private sector, I had to work at least 15 years to qualify for 3 weeks vacation
On military leave, a buddy signs you in Friday even though you don't come back until Monday morning.
"And a lot of these people are, myth to the contrary, not slackers, but hard workers who work understaffed, with constant threat of their job positions being eliminated, and often in specialized technical areas such as fire behavior science or remote sensing or other specialized capabilities. "
I never said they were slackers, I said they were well paid and had good benefits.
I have directly seen the effects of downsizing, especially during the Clinton years, and experienced much of what you noted. I also saw that productivity per person increased, and that we lost a lot of "dead wood".
I have come to believe that a fair amount of civil service jobs are necessary and are positive for the nation. It is extremely hard to determine what they are, however, and very difficult to eliminate agencies once they have started. Not impossible, just very difficult.
On the other hand, they operate the world's largest vehicular fleet ~ and that make them pretty much average in the category of industrial type employers.
The one place where they star involves employee killings ~ they've always been far below average. That's why when it happens it gets so much coverage in the news.
The company makes reasonable efforts to reduce risks faced by letter carriers who serve "bad parts of town". Employee parking lots are well fenced and guarded so that the majority of employees who work nights are made as safe as possible as they go to and from their cars.
Still, there are bombs, and anthrax, and other stuff ~ you would simply not believe the dangerous substances people think they can mail!
Some day they'll figure out that when UPS turns you down, you really shouldn't try slipping it past USPS.
"The federales have absolutely nothing comprable to 'personal days'."
Untrue. I know plenty of people with comp time, which is in addition to 6 weeks vacation and, etc, holdidays, etc.
They're in the office only as much as out. They used to take 2 hour lunches, but don't do that anymore.
Part of the problem is they are all in businesses where activity has irregular, unscheduled surges. That means you have to keep more specialists in various fields on hand than you need for an average workload. Else you will be caught short when the sky falls in.
Most other federal workers in DC are headquarters types pretty similar to their private sector counterparts. They are slowly being replaced with bloodless, soulless computer systems! (Brrrraaaahahahahahahahha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).
Federal employees (in DC) used to get nearly half the year off. Through the years that's been whittled down to the present system. At the same time they were working 6 day weeks many years after that practice was no longer customary ANYWHERE in America.
I have no doubt that you work hard. I just came off of a consulting gig with a Federal agency and previous to that I had never seen such a bunch of self-absorbed slackers in my entire life.
True. But if I only take leave on weekdays and don't combine with weekends or Holidays.. it's 30 days paid vacation per year.
The thing is though...Many do take leave around the holidays and if you leave the geograpphic area on a weekend you must take leave.
On my last tour I worked amongst federal civilians who had the flex schedule(every other friday off). Ssy if you wanted to visit family over thanksgiving and spend the weekend...4 days leave. If the civilians lined up their CWS correctly they were charged no days. Even better they could take vacation on mon, tues, weds and be away for the holiday.
I'm not saying the military leave deal isn't a good deal, but when you subtract out the weekends and holidays it is comparable to a civilian plan.
Why would anyone want to live in NYC? City Income Tax, State Income Tax, Outrageous Sales taxes on every thing you buy. Not for me!
Consider moving to Texas, Florida, Nevada....all high growth states with NO STATE INCOME TAX.
You live in NYC to test yourself against the best in your field. To re-invent yourself. To satisfy curiosity. To make a large pile of money. To indulge interests that can't be indulged elsewhere...
Comp time is NOT the same as what folks are calling personal time though.
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