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.
BTW, my experience with cellphone companies is that the government has been totally displaced from holding the number one position in customer abuse.
"Overpaid jobs: Actors, musicians, entertainers and athletes."
hahaha...that is funny...
They MAKE money....don't compare to Fed workers....
Baloney. The government is a bloated beyond belief. We could eliminate 99% of federal "jobs" (including yours) and we'd all be better off.
I'm assuming they took those jobs AFTER retirement. If so, then that's their right. But someone who has dedicated their career to public service rarely has the same opportunities as someone who has dedicated their career to the private sector.
For the record, I'm a believer in a "cooling off" period.
Muleteam1
Were you perhaps canned?
"I donated about 1700 hours worth of sick leave to the people of the United States as an "extra tax" when I retired. (Gad do I despise ungrateful gift recipients)."
You are ungrateful of the gift you received. A career insulated from the real world. What company outside of the fed gov't allows you to accumulate absurd amounts of "sick leave"?
You gripe about a gift that you were given, then claim that by giving it back you were making a sacrifice that was unappreciated.
LOL!!! At least you realize your mistake, and you hopefully won't make it again. That WAS a government employee, after all.
"Think about it ~ how would you have ended up being prosecuted in a federal court for fraudulently misusing them"
How many federal employees have ever faced this sort of prosecution? I'll tell you. It's probably close to zero.
I don't know for sure, of course, but neither do you. There is almost no enforcement of this sort of thing in the federal gov't, and you know it.
Sorry, it wasn't a gift but an "earned benefit". It was "taxed away" by legislation that did not apply to any other group of Americans.
Odds are good that our complainant encountered a CONTRACT WORKER, and not a real government employee.
The private sector equivalent occurs when investigations are made into false workmen's compensation claims, but those usually target the doctors and not the workers.
"Were you perhaps canned?"
Ha! another thing that almost never happens, unless of course you leave early. Most of your career was probably spent making sure that none of your peers left a minute before they were supposed to.
No, I quit because I decided a socialist system in which people got paid for existing, rather than performing was not for me.
You look a gift horse in the mouth. You should be more grateful to the people that allow you to retire in the style to which you almost certainly do not deserve based on the work you did as a civil servant.
You were saying.............?.
I've actually worked with a lot of government employees. Some are as bad as the stereotypes. Some of them are excellent. It just depends.
"Sorry, it wasn't a gift but an "earned benefit". "
We're never going to find common ground here. No sense debating.
Would it make you feel better if I said "thanks for returning the 'earned benefit' to the taxpayer"?
I don't blame you for riding the gravy train for a career....some people feel entitled to do just that. Just don't complain about the ride, ok?
Odds are almost any employer is going to end up with an average workforce.
I don't recall it being a "gravytrain".
"Odds are almost any employer is going to end up with an average workforce"
No. The federal workforce self-selects for below average.....those who can often leave. Those who can't always stay.
Odds are almost any employer is going to end up with an average workforce
If that were the case then there'd be no progress.
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