Posted on 12/11/2009 9:52:12 PM PST by jessduntno
WASHINGTON, D.C. (YBH.ME) – The internet news machine is abuzz this morning over a USA TODAY article in which it is revealed that federal workers earn an average salary of $71,206 vs. $40,331 for private sector employees. While those numbers are striking, an even more disconnected figure is available.
According to the CATO Institute, when benefits are included, federal workers earn far more than those in the private sector and the disparity is growing.
The CATO study, released in September, puts the average federal civilian salary with benefits at $119,982 vs. $59,909 for the private sector. Federal government employees now earn fully double that of their private sector countrymen. In 2004, the average federal employee made two-thirds more than a person employed in the private sector according to CATO. The rate of disparity is growing rapidly. Total federal employee compensation grew 57% from 2004-2008 and just 30.8% in the private sector over the same period.
Neither CATO or USA TODAY explored the non-financial compensation aspects of either group, such as job security, guaranteed wage increases, and pension security. Taking all three into account, federal government jobs would become even more valuable as the government doesn’t often shrink while private sector jobs ebb and flow on a more consistent basis.
CATO figures used in their analysis are from The Bureau of Economic Analysis. The USA TODAY study analyzed data from the Office of Personnel Management’s database. The different data sources and methodology account for slight differences in each report’s base numbers.
(Excerpt) Read more at yesbuthowever.com ...
...and it's yours for life.
Government employees are the barnacles on the ship of national prosperity.
Over the past 20 years private industry has taken a number of steps to eliminate the high cost of a mature work force:
1) Eliminating defined benefit pension plans and replacing them with 401K plans or no pension.
2) Using waves of downsizing to disproportionately eliminate over 50 middle management employees.
3) Shifting a greater percentage of the cost of company health care plans to employee.
4) Eliminating retiree medical plans.
5) Closing US manufacturing facilities and outsourcing production to offshore companies who pay lower wages and do not have benefit plans.
Older employees are more costly for organizations. They earn higher wages than younger workers and incur higher benefit costs (more days of vacation, higher medical costs). In a free market, companies will seek to reduce these expenses by shedding higher cost workers and shift those costs to the public sector.
I don’t buy the proposition that most older workers fired by private industry are less productive or have failed to keep up their skills. I’ve worked for public companies that disproportionately eliminated middle managers over age 50 in a deliberate effort to reduce wage, pension and health care costs only to find they had lost critical business knowledge. Those companies incurred significant costs either rehiring those workers as consultant or going through trial and error with younger people to relearn information vital to sustaining customer relationships or efficiently running the operation.
As an aside I’m now working for a privately held company, successfully competing in an industry that is all but gone from the US. The young entrepreneur who owns the business has consciously hired a team of experienced gray heads to run the operations, product development, and sales. The company still manufactures in the US and is fast and flexible, exploiting opportunities in the marketplace the far away Asian producers that now dominate the industry aren’t identifying or able to service. Experience, knowledge and old fashion American ingenuity are triumphing. Interesting that most of the management team is comprised of people who were downsized from management of publicly held companies as they outsourced production and turned over middle and upper management jobs to young aggressive financial MBA types. Those MBA’s tend to run the business from financial models and directives, never darkening the door of a customer or factory. We win by picking our customers carefully and committing ourselves to servicing customer needs. It is amazing how one can make money providing products to customers who value quality, innovation, service and integrity over the lowest price. It is also amazing how fast, creative, flexible and productive a bunch of gray hairs put out to pasture can be when they have good leadership and their knowledge is valued.
Another biggy is that Federal pensions are inflation indexed unlike private pensions. Go out and price an inflation indexed annuity, and you will see how valuable this is. My employer bases my pension on years of service x average annual salary for my entire career x 1.5% - put a 2% wage growth and 2% inflation into these calculations and you can quickly see that my monthly pension check may buy a loaf of bread at 85 if it is the store brand.
Very few Federal employees have a pension that draws 80% of their pay. Most Federal employees hired within the last 20 years have a very small pension. The bulk of their retirement is in a Thrift Savings Plan that they pay into and the Federal Government will match up to around 5%. The average Federal employee does not get free health insurance either during employment or retirement. Health insurance is paid for by the employee with the government contributing to the cost. Federal Government Reservists such as those that work at DHS-FEMA get no retirement benefits, no health benefits, no leave or holidays.
Davis-Bacon in action. All paid for by “We the people”. Versailles on the Potomac is an island onto itself - morally, politically and mentally. Starve them out.
“Ambiens calor tyrannis”
I see you didn’t fall asleep in Latin class.
:-)
The Democrats are usually the ones relying upon Class Warfare to gain power.
Now Class Warfare is being used against them.
Good to see the tables turned.
You make some good points.
Another factor is no doubt the cost of living in the DC metro area. It’s one of the highest in the nation. To attract high quality employees away from places where money goes a lot further, you will have to pay them enough money to afford a house in the burbs where their kids can get a good education in a safe environment.
Slaves of loyalty to the federal future socialization of America, some are indeed more equal than others.
And federal workers were wise to read the writing on the wall, and seek out a career in one of the few employement sectors immune from all of the above. They simply planned better for the coming age than most of us. Hating them for it is like hating the Wall Street worker who's getting a big bonus this year with our tax money.
“I see you didn’t fall asleep in Latin class.
:-)”
LOL! I posted that fully expecting to hear the opposite!
It’s been a long time - 40 years - since I really knew what I was doing with that language. I occasionally dust it off to read a little Cicero or such, but to recall the grammar well enough to compose something is not easy, and the mind is no longer nimble enough to really study it fruitfully again like I once could.
My little variation on the famous, and famously mistranslated, “Sic semper tyrannis” also required a bit of a vocabulary search, since the concept “room temperature” was not a part of the Roman mind as far as I could tell. It was a fun little project: I’m glad if I got the grammar and the spirit of the vocabulary right. :)
exactly...thats what its become ...on big mafia
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