More reality.
Posted on 02/03/2010 7:26:09 AM PST by Poundstone
Excerpt: The budget answers critics, including Scott Brown, the newly elected Republican senator from Massachusetts, who say federal civilians earn much more than private-sector workers. There's a reason for that. Federal workers are better educated.
"The Federal Government hires lawyers to tackle corruption, security professionals to monitor our borders, doctors to care for our injured veterans, and world-class scientists to combat deadly diseases such as cancer," the budget says. "Because of these vital needs, the Federal Government hires a relatively highly educated workforce, resulting in higher average pay."
Consider these stats: Twenty percent of federal workers have a master's, professional or doctorate degree, compared with 13 percent in the private sector. Fifty-one percent of federal employees have a college degree of some sort, but only 35 percent do in the private sector.
Frankie and Flo may not be smarter than other folks, but they do have more schooling, and they get paid accordingly. They are also substantially older, and that contributes to higher pay -- 46 percent of federal employees are 50 or older, compared with 31 percent of private-sector workers.
Although the section doesn't say so, comparing overall federal and private-sector pay is misleading in another way, because Uncle Sam doesn't employ many people at the bottom of the wage scale the way industry does.
Job-for-job comparisons tell a completely different story. In fact, government figures indicate that federal employees are underpaid by 26 percent compared with their counterparts in similar position in the business world.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Yes, that’s getting to the heart of it. And why Obama is pushing special student loan pay-offs for those young who never leave the crib of artificial merit and hierarchy that starts in public grade schools and continues through colleges — and then continues for a lifetime if one works for FedGov.
Wow! This “better educated” is elitist. Education is NO measure of intelligence. Frankly, I’d like to see a requirement that no one could work for the government until they’d spent time in the private sector (military excluded). It’s not all about education, either. I don’t think they should be unionized, either. When they “negotiate” for higher wages they’re holding the American people WHO PAY THEIR SALARIES hostage. Because they’re so insulated and unaccountable they eventually forget who they work for.
How many members of congress have advanced degrees? They don’t seem to be too smart now do they? How many times (in every state in the land) do we hear about kids who were in “the system” being killed, beat up, abused because someone in the government didn’t check up on them enough? The excuse is always the same, not enough workers and too many cases, give us more of your money so we can hire more people. Lather, rinse, repeat. Pay them all half as much and hire 2 workers where their once was one.
Heavens, we have teacher here in Oregon who are earning MORE in retirement than they did when they were productive. That comes out of MY pocket. And I homeschooled because I didn’t want the indoctrination or the incompetence. When you pander to the lowest common denominator no one has to set their sights high. But that makes sense I guess since they don’t know any better. Sorry, but as long as these people work courtesy of the American people, they should be beholden to us. For too long we haven’t held them accountable. I know people with college degrees who aren’t worth the cost of the paper to print their degree and high school drop outs who work hard and are actually making something of themselves. The hard way. Without a union daddy to take care of all their needs and keep them competing like those that pay their salaries have to do.
Cindie
More reality.
OK. Driving License stations are a state function, not federal. In Tennessee, the pay grade for one of those folks is about the same as my wife makes in another department - about 13 bucks an hour. You only need to work 7,692 hours a year at that rate to get that 100 grand.
I watched my father work for the Department of the Navy for two decades. I often visited my father’s office, met a lot of very neat people, including a lot of very fine naval officers.
I’ve been a government contractor on and off since the mid-1980s, and had continuous contracts with the federal government from 1991 through 2006.
Many of my current friends, neighbors, acquaintances, folks with whom I go to church are government employees or contractors.
Here’s a few things I’ve learned in 40+ years in the belly of the beast:
1. There are many fine, hard-working, dedicated government employees.
2. There are as many lazy, incompetent, dishonest government employees than good ones.
3. Good government managers with small spans of control often have very good, even excellent teams that actually get the work done in the government that is given to be done.
4. The larger the the group in the org chart, the more likely it will approach the 50% level of incompetence, ineptitude and laziness.
5. It isn’t that contractors are better people, they’re not. But on many contracts, the companies holding the contracts are only paid for the hours actually worked. In a standard year, for the contracting company to make a profit on a positiion, the worker must perform something above 1800 hours of actual direct work on the contract.
Conversely, federal employees with a few years of service begin to accrue significant amounts of annual leave and sick leave, often spend work time going to various educational events (contractors aren’t generally paid for this sort of thing, and usually do the educational thing off-hours, although there are exceptions), diversity seminars, ethics seminars, etc., and perform work directly related to their jobs about 1200 - 1400 hours per year.
Salaries between contract personnel and federal personnel doing the same job are often similar, but benefits are often much better on the federal side of things.
As well, getting rid of contract personnel is a picnic compared to getting rid of a federal employee, and thus, there is less of a tendency for contracts to accumulate useless workers.
6. Many individuals working on government contracts aspire to being hired on as direct government employees, if possible. There’s a reason for that and it isn’t patriotism.
7. Much of the work done by many federal agencies is unnecessary, useless, or even counterproductive. But there are always some dedicated federal workers within the larger group who perform that work well and efficiently.
My husband is on an advisory board for a government agency, what he sees as the problem is all the ridiculous rules and regulations. They tie their hands behind their backs, hobble their feet together and then give each worker enough stupid work for 3 people and the things that NEED to be done go wanting.
As a former employee of the Postal Service, does it bother you in the slightest that everything the Postal Service does could be done better and cheaper by private postal carriers - if they were allowed to exist.
You have 22 years of service in the USN and your work currently benefits them. I don’t think anyone who knows that will confuse you with a DMV bureaucrat.
My husband's agency has entirely too many people in DC at headquarters, all in SES positions, and they're all, almost to a person, bumbling idiots.
Fact: You don't know what you are talking about.
I am converting from nearly 20 years in the private sector to a DoD job doing the exact same thing. Only difference is I will be making less money as a government employee. I don't have to leave private industry - I choose to because the opportunity is there. I'm hoping better opportunities open up from this and it pays off in the long run. And the job security is better. Since things are a little rough these days, is it okay with you if I take a job for better security for my family?
While there are plenty of useless government workers, not all government workers are useless. And there is no place cooler to work than the Pentagon!
You make a good point. The gov’t employs a lot of “highly educated” people in roles that wouldn’t exist or shouldn’t exist if the market made the rules. I read an article some time back by a guy with a history degree or something who made, by his own admission, far more working for gov’t than he could in the private sector, if he could’ve even found a job. He was leaving his job and wanted to try and actually EARN his money for a change.
Sorry, but my BS detector went off right here. I have a master's degree in economics, specializing in labor economics.
You don't have the lopsided ratios of 300 to 400 applicants for every available position in the private sector which you have in the Federal sector. People are not stupid: they do not gravitate to jobs where they are underpaid by 26 percent.
Yes, some of the lopsided ratios can be explained by the fact that Federal sector job openings are far more visible. In most cases, they are required by law to have the facade of visibility. Private companies, on the other hand, often work through staffing agencies and recruiters because the services they provide in weeding out large pools of applicants is well worth the fees paid.
That being said, people are economically rational in job choices as they are in most other aspects of their lives. Benefits, job security, the working environment, flexible scheduling, commuting distances and a whole lot of other factors are considered in taking jobs.
There is a reason why federal workers are much older than those in the private sector: They don't like to leave these jobs. I'm sure there are a variety of reasons behind this. I'm sure some are quite capable and could easily get jobs in the private sector. Why don't they?
For anyone who has ever spent time in a government office (tax audit, permit approval, etc.), there is also no shortage of incompetents who wouldn't last a day in most private sector jobs. But I've also been to private businesses which employ these type of people for whatever reason. Is it a coincidence that far left unions like SEIU enjoy almost no success in the private sector and focus their recruiting efforts almost exclusively on the public sector? I think not.
Is it a coincidence that other far left unions like the UAW which once dominated certain private industries have now moved much of their membership into the public sector?
That’s BS, the typical COTR could care less about the contractors workload, they just pile it on.
I really doubt that.
signed,
Ellie Light
Loads. The local post office is filled with them.
Congratulations! Best two sentence statement on this entire form which should become policy!
Secondly, when consider the cost of the USPS please don't forget to include the subsidies it receives from the federal gov't.
Federal workers get “survivor” pay for getting through the application process? Has anyone ever applied for a government job; the application process is a blizzard of forms to complete.
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