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.
Public sector employees lack the opportunities presented in the private sector.
All a federale gets is ANNUAL LEAVE, and SICK LEAVE.
If you are with the gubmit 15 years, you get 26 annual leave days a year.
Add that to 10 federal holidays and that's 36 days off.
NOT including the 13 sick or personal days you earn each year that adds up and can be carried from year to year.
OR the 30 days of vacation time that can be carried over from year to year.
Under current rules you can convert any remaining CSRS sick leave into time served for retirement annuity purposes, but any remaining FERS sick leave is simply lost.
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).
10 holidays, and you get what, 8 holidays? Plus, your employer provides you with free parking.
So they're comparing the mostly white-collar government personell with the white- and blue-collar private sector? They could be playing with numbers with how they define each group.
BTW, no federal government employee gets anything called "personal days". Most smart employees save up their sick leave for that heartattack they're going to have in 30 years after listening to all this whining by private sector probate lawyers.
Gov't service used to be a noble thing. Now it is viewed by some in the public who are insecure about their own jobs as some kind of scam...pathetic.
Why don't you post your salary, vacation time, sick time, etc?
Let's compare salaries.
The "opportunities" are a gamble. You can work 50 - 60 hours a week for 10 years and suddenly lose your job because of a merger, relocation or a new management team that wants to clean house. In the Federal government Civil Service eliminates all worries except things like base closings.
I know from my days in the Air Force that Civil Service also protects underachievers.
Those guys aren't happy with what they are getting and want to get it all, even the COTR's salary if they can.
that's precisely why I refer to sick leave as personal leave.
Because there is no incentive to conserve it in the government, since it is lost if you never use it.....you either use it or lose it....
Sick leave in the gumbit is like added annual leave days for lots and lots of people.
That's what business is, a gamble. Business is risk, but the rewards for success are enormous. If someone isn't ready to play that game, they've got no business being in business.
Concerning job security, I went through 5 or 6 fullscale RIFs, or Reductions in Force. Only 1 of those RIFs was conducted in accordance with law.
So much for security.
I believe that lawyers rarely go to work for the federal government because the money's better. They go because there is less stress and more time for family. At least that's true for the government attorneys I know.
It probably varies by discipline.
But I've got two chemist friends from college that ended up with the EPA.
Compared to private industry...they are cleaning up.
Both had just a bachelors in Chemistry from a small church-affiliated college and
I doubt they could have done as well financially, given the ups and downs
of the chemical industry in the USA.
I've never heard of anyone in the private sector being prosecuted in a federal criminal court for fraudulent "personal day" use.
Remember, a gub'mn't job brings with it the risk of fine, imprisonment and dismissal. A job down at the autoplant is probably never going to send you to jail or bankrupt your wife and kids leaving them in the streets to rot.
Wonder how an economist would value that "risk"?
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