Posted on 10/25/2010 1:51:45 PM PDT by Recovering_Democrat
The Federal Pay Gap (Government pay vs. Private Sector)
An excellent video from Rightchange.com
(Excerpt) Read more at vimeo.com ...
Tagged and bumped.
The average annual compensation for a worker in the state of Washington is $47770.
The average annual compensation for a worker in the state of Mississippi is $33570.
If I were to use these statistics to claim that Washington workers were unfairly compensated v. workers in Mississippi, wouldn’t you say that there are many reasons for this disparity? And, I would agree that it is meaningless to compare average worker compensation without making numerous adjustments (age, education, occupation, location, etc.).
So why do you post meaningless comparisons of private v. public sector wages?
Totally bogus assertions. Federal workers’ benefits are in line with their peer groups in the private sector.
Bullcrap. Federal bureaucracy is permeated throughout our society, and the people so employed (the stats I’ve seen DO NOT include military personnel, btw, but “civil servants”) are paid much higher.
I know you’re a member of the federal bureaucracy, Poundstone, so your notes and extremely vested interests are so noted.
I will stand for the DECIMATION of the federal bureaucracy as we know it—indeed, it needs to be trimmed back to perhaps 20% of its current size. Or more.
States are FULLY capable of doing what the federal government does—and better.
They aren’t meaningless. They are totally relevant to the taxpayer.
A private sector job generally doesn’t depend 100% on the taxes of the citizenry. A public sector job DOES depend 100% on the taxation of the citizenry. When the “public sector” is paid more than the “private sector”, I believe something is seriously wrong. Such as situation says the government worker (the one who lives off taxes) is worth MORE than the private worker (the one who PAYS the entire salary of the government worker).
Geographic differentiations (spelling?)in pay are accounted for in both private and public sector jobs—so I don’t know what difference that makes.
As I said earlier, the federal bureaucracy has permeated the whole width and length of our nation. We must cut it back—BIG TIME.
The Framers did envision a bureaucracy of this size, and we shouldn’t either.
“When the “public sector” is paid more than the “private sector”, I believe something is seriously wrong.”
The problem with all these comparisons of public v. private sector compensation is that they don’t compare apples to apples. They assume that the public and private sectors have the same distribution of occupations. That members of both sectors have similar qualifications, etc.
I agree with that there are too many public sector employees. But, if we accept the premise that the average wages in two distinctly different populations should be similar, aren’t we accepting the argument that all workers, despite their qualifications or their occupations should be paid the same amount? That sounds more like a socialist than a conservative argument.
for later
The fact is, the public sector, paid for by the taxpayer, is overpaid and over-benefitted. That is not a socialist argument, it is an argument being made as the one who PAYS the bills.
I pay the salaries, and I say they’re overpaid.
That is a free market argument.
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