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.
As a federal employee, I completely disagree with this bogus "study." We don't make big bucks in the federal government, I assure you. Believe me, the taxpayers are getting their money's worth!
It's not the big bucks. It's the four to six weeks vacation, generous health benefits, and defined benefit pension. All benefits that largely do not exist any more in the private sector.
I expect that any freepers that are federal workers will dispute.
And most government "workers" don't need to worry about layoffs when their employer goes (deeper) into the red.
If the federal government were any capitalistic business, employees who were not laid off would have their pay frozen, if not cut.
Describe briefly your pension. How long do you need to work to get X % of your salary?
I totally agree with the secure job part. Too secure. I could tell you stories...!
But the overpaid? Only for the ones who get to go to work and laze around. My civil service husband is a hyper workaholic who loves to get things done. and is way underpaid (abt $4-5/hr according to local studies) but stays for the job security.
he responded by saying "Let's make this easy for me..."
I said "No, see, it's not about making it easy for YOU. I'm the customer, you are here to sell me what I am here to buy, may I have 2 tokens please?"
He just shook his head, pushed half of the money back and said "Now, to make it easy on me, you just throw the change in there..."
I said "I am buying both tokens for later."
"Oh, you are?" he said--as if I were not planning to do this, though why else would I buy two tokens ahead of time, late at night, when NO OTHER CUSTOMERS were in the line, or even that part of the station--not one?
He finally pushed through both token,s but he wouldn't let up! He said "Now I have to count all this change--"
To which I responded, "Yes, becase that's your job, and you work for me, so do your job."
To which he replied with the perfect response of our current batch of "civil servants" :
"I don't work for you, no, I don't work for you--I work for the city!"
It became clear why he had a hard time counting out $2.50, with that kind of brain power.
I highly doubt it. The government produces precious little value for the astronomical quantities of money it spends.
The "worth" of an employee is the value they generate, and there is not much value generating going on in government these days.
P.S. Yes, I'm aware this article is about federal employees, but the attitude is pervasive. The sense of "F you, I've got mine" from all public sector employees is the reason there's such a negative attitude about them.
If you take account of extremely generous public-sector pension plans, much more (usually) paid vacation and "personal " days, and the most guaranteed job security outside of academic tenure, public sector employees DO have a very cushy deal. Indeed, outside of "Fortune 500" companies that have relatively generous benefits, most of us in the private sector have far weaker benefits, pensions, and job (in)security than everyone that WE pay for in the public sector. Regardless of what your actual salary figures may be, you have it good, very good.
As a federal employee, I completely disagree with this bogus "study." We don't make big bucks in the federal government, I assure you. Believe me, the taxpayers are getting their money's worth!
As an active duty guy...I do too!!! I have worked with may government servants and NEVER thought that they made too much money. 100,000 average...obviously they are counting the over paid Senate and House.
Exactly. With the money we pay for state and federal services we should be getting Rolls Royce service. Instead we get a leaky wheelbarrow with a flat tire.
Nonsense, Shimmer. The lowest government wage scale is at least the federally mandated hourly minimum. A GS-1 makes a tad over $15,000 a year and it goes up pretty fast after that. Unless he's one of the ones who "go to work and laze around," I'm betting he's making a lot more than $4-$5 an hour. Ask to see his pay statement.
It would have been pointless, but you could have pulled out a dollar bill and pointed to the fine print that says "This currency is legal tender for all debts, public and private". Which at its root means that it is illegal to refuse American currency offered in payment of a debt.
Like I said earlier, government employees don't have to worry about job security when revenues go south (do they ever go north with the Fed?). and the benefits are better than all except the top 5% of private sector employers.
Also, feds usually get at least a 3% cost of living salary increase each year, and a 3-4% pay grade longevity promotion increase each year just for meeting minimal performance requirements.
GS-12 and GS-13's out in low cost of living cities around the country have a very sweet deal.
You work 40 hours a week. Make up to $95k a year. Get up to six weeks vacation. All the federal holidays, a ton of sick days and personal days. Flexible schedules and telecommuting options as well where you can compress your 10 day pay period into 9 days so every other friday is a day off....
I think she means he's underpaid by $4 - $5 per hour, not that he makes $4 -$5 per hour.
I made the mistake of thinking I was dealing with a rational person. I had left my wallet at home, but it wasn't like I dumped a hundred pennies down, either--quarters, dimes. I mean, the guy had NO other customers, not a single person in the area but me. Is the life of someone sitting on his ass in a booth THAT complicated that he can't count change for someone who pays his salary? I mean, I've never seen a sign saying "paper money ONLY" over one of those booths.
I recall getting 13 days per year for many years. Then it was 20 days, and then 26 days. However, no one that I can recall getting 30 days vacation out of the feds.
You get longer and longer vacations the more years you work.
Still, this seemingly generous vacation time is dramatically reduced from the 3 full months the federales got up until the draining of the swamps in and around DC.
In Abe Lincoln's time they used to shut down DC in the summer lest all the people die of disease.
A large chunk of your federal workforce consists of USPS employees, and they generally are not allowed to take any vacation time from roughly late October until mid January.
Within living memory, Postal workers were forced to work on Christmas Day.
Best deal on vacations was negotiated by AFL-CIO's UAW division. My father usually got a minimum of 12 weeks vacation during re-tooling in the Summer.
Bet the information in this article was put together primarily by a Washington DC lawyer with his own private parking space (no Metro rides for that class, eh!), who makes an awful lot more working for a lobbyist than doing an honest job down at the courthouse.
'nuff said.
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