TV Reality Check: 'NCIS' Is All Wet on Public-Sector Salaries

Michigan Capitol Confidential ^ | 12/27/2011 | Tom Gantert

[MichCapCon]

"NCIS" may be the one of the most popular TV crime shows on the air, but it is off the mark when it comes to a discussion about public-sector compensation in a recent episode.

In episode 11, “The Newborn King,” the character Jimmy Palmer shows his future father-in-law around the office. The father-in-law doesn’t like Palmer’s public-sector job, where he is an assistant during autopsies.

“He actually thinks I am stuck in some government job that pays too little and requires too many hours,” Palmer tells his colleagues of his father-in-law to be.

“You are,” Special Agent Jethro Gibbs interjects.

The father-in-law, who owns a funeral home and is a “professional mortician,” tells Palmer at one point: “You do know there are jobs in the private sector where you could make twice as much money and still be home by 6, right?”

Although occupational pay varies from job to job, on average public-sector employees actually do much better than the private sector.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, current average compensation for state and local government jobs is $40.76 per hour, or about $84,781 per year. The current average private-sector total compensation is $28.24 per hour, or about $58,739 a year. When adding in other public-sector benefits like health care and pensions, the disparity is even greater.

Those numbers from the BLS don’t include federal workers, but USA Today released its own analysis in 2010 that showed federal workers earned twice as much as their private-sector counterparts.

[wideawake]

Over the past couple of seasons NCIS has become a PSA for the DNC.

[muawiyah]

Same old argument; same old data; now, how much does a funeral home director make ~ assuming he's an owner with a franchise under a major chain label?

His income is not included in the data base.

[muawiyah]

Part of the problem here is reporters and editors make so little these days (in a rapidly declining "news sector") they really don't know what questions to ask.

That leaves the framing of the story to the partisans.

[harpu]

Thank you for saving me a like response...

[adorno]

Wait! What?!?

I thought we were all working for the government.

Where’s my redistribution check?

[wally_bert]

NCIS hasn’t been watchable for a few seasons. It seemed to get more and more soap operaish and touchy feely.

[infowarrior]

Over the past couple of seasons NCIS has become a PSA for the DNC.

Define "the past couple of seasons". This trend has been going on for a lot longer than the last season or two...

the infowarrior

[morphing libertarian]

compare autopsy assistant to be right about the show, don’t know if there is a private sector comparison

[listenhillary]

For Obama to win he has to use the “hate the Rich” playbook. But the rich are now federal government employees that earn twice as much as the private sector employee so he has to tell the federal employees secretly that he’s not talking about the rich federal workers and assure them that the gravy train will continue if they vote for him.

It gets kinda confusing...

Federal workers earning double their private counterparts
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/income/2010-08-10-1Afedpay10_ST_N.htm

[Mister Da]

NCIS & the like are pure liberal trash that encourages deviate behavior by highlighting it every week.

Years ago I stopped watching crime dramas after watching an episode that dealt with youths poring gasoline on a homeless man & setting him afire. The very next day some “youths” did that very thing to a homeless man in Boston. Coincidence? No way! They were doing what they saw on TV.

IMO, crime dramas give the criminals ideas - bad ideas.

I do not favor censorship, but crime dramas are an exception. They are as evil as porn.

[CIDKauf]

Law and Order now the worst when McCoy states “I’m not sure if seperation of church and state will trump free speech”... click (tv going off)

[KrisKrinkle]

The article is Crap.

The starting point is whether or not Jimmy the autopsy assistant is paid enough, too much or too little. Then the article segues into how “average public-sector employees actually do much better than the private sector.”

That tells nothing about Jimmy. We don’t know where Jimmy falls within the average.

The comparison needs to be between Jimmy and a private sector autopsy assistant...if there even are any.

[wildbill]

The show this week started in on the dangerous oil and gas procedure known as “fracking” as being responsible for a whole town getting sick and dying. I turned it off.

The EPA has no definitive statement or analysis on fracking and any contamination of groundwater.

[Shery]

When one lumps all public sector jobs together, one would be way off on that premise. I worked as a school nurse, on an army base overseas. I could’ve made half again or more than what I earned, had I worked in the private sector or a hospital job. But, I was happy to have the summers off. There was a lot of stress with that job, though.

[Shimmer1]

So if you’d worked a completely different job, you could have made more money. yeah. Makes sense.

[nonsporting]

Over the past couple of seasons NCIS has become a PSA for the DNC.

That's the truth.

With the increasing number of pro-sodomite programs it won't be long before NCIS adopts a "very special" agent indeed.

[ExCTCitizen]

Over the past couple of seasons NCIS has become a PSA for the DNC.

That's the truth.

With the increasing number of pro-sodomite programs it won't be long before NCIS adopts a "very special" agent indeed.

Lets see... a TG agent who has a underage boyfriend??

[MarkL]

I really don't know when this happened. I know my mother, who was a clerk at the KC IRS service center, worked long hours, and certainly WAS underpaid. However, at the time, the benefits, in particular the health insurance, was worth the long hours and short pay. She worked until her diagnosis with cancer back in 1984.

Mark