Government jobs pay more and have better benefits than private sector jobs.
What incentive does that create?
Rather than acquire retirement wealth, those that do ‘public service’ work receive huge retirements that greatly exceed anything they might have acquired working for private companies.
Except in this case.
Census workers were paid very darn little (I’m making more now on unemployment than I was at the Census) and had NO benefits at all. No health coverage, no sick leave, no retirement.
Office clerks (what I mostly did) made 11 bucks an hour, which is a fair bit less than a similar job in private industry.The low pay vs the field workers was made up by our having full-time hours.
Enumerators (field workers) made 15 bucks, which is a decent wage, but most of them only worked a few hours a week for a few weeks, and were let go.
Crew leader assistants (my second post there) made the same as Enumerators, but had to be de facto crew leaders, and in their spare time (yeah, right) were to do enumeration. I had that position for a week, and was laid off.
Overtime was a non-issue, as it was basically forbidden. Work overtime (unless it was pre-approved. read:act of Congress)and you’re fired. First time.
The management at the Regional Census Centers did their best to stuff duties as far down the food chain as possible, because their chances for being kept on, promoted, getting a bonus, etc, depended on it. When you hear news about mis- or malfeasance at the Census, you can pretty much bet someone at the RCC was behind it.
It was not a bad job, all in all, and I worked with some of the best and smartest people I’ve ever worked with.