Posted on 08/15/2010 5:32:12 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Workers in the federal government now earn, on average, double what private-sector workers make, according to a USA Today study released Aug. 10.
"Federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 in 2009 while private workers made $61,051 in total compensation," the paper said. "Public employee unions say the compensation gap reflects the increasingly high level of skill and education required for most federal jobs and the government contracting out lower-paid jobs to the private sector in recent years."
The report was based on numbers from the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis. The federal pay and benefits also were much higher than the $69,912 average for state and local government workers.
USA Today also found that, since 2000, federal workers' pay has risen 36.9 percent above the inflation rate, compared with 8.8 percent for private workers. Bavaro said that this has made federal workers' lives much easier than those who pay the taxes, with union contracts guaranteeing cost-of-living increases even when the economy is in recession.
By contrast, he concluded, "You and I eat what we hunt."
(Excerpt) Read more at appeal-democrat.com ...
If I lived in CA, the next Proposition I would put on the ballot to feel the wrath of voters would be a repeal of the 1978 Dill Act, which is the one that allows the unionization of public servants. This is the perfect time to do it, while the taxpayers are hacked off.
http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_3_california-economy.html
A complete and bald-faced lie.
“You are our slaves who will now build our Victory Mosques and Crescents beginning
where each of the firsts attack began. As-salamu alaykum, dhimmis.”
“Public employee unions say the compensation gap reflects the increasingly high level of skill and education required for most federal jobs”
Postal workers?
We should stop calling them Civil Servants or Government Workers!
Most of them are not civil and the Government doesn’t work.
They are cannibals!!!
And the worst bunch of tax cheaters in the country are public employees, with employees of the IRS having the highest percentage of non-filers. Sweet job all around.
yes..I propose that all civil servants and lawmakers take a cut in pay and benefits more in keeping with the people they work for...If they dont like it they can leave and let someone else have the job..Why are they making more than most Americans...Why do they have better benefits than most Americans? We could afford our own healthcare if we were not paying them...We outlawed slavery.
Every time I hear of these government employees referred to or referring to them selves as “civil servants” I gag. I bet they all work hard, have crummy benefits, and bad pensions. Waaaaaaah! Waaaaaaah!
I would say it is quite the opposite!
Has anyone on this forum ever dealt with a government employee that demonstrated this high level of skill and education?
Yes, this is so evident when one goes to the DMV, or stand in line at TSA security at the airport, or deal with personnel at many VA hospitals, etc., etc.
My sister was a state employee ..her co-workers spent a lot of their day in the halls complaining about having to get up and drive to work, on the internet. I think some even ran their ebay business from the office. They always had huge back log and claimed they needed to work overtime on saturdays ..thats when they brought the kid, the tv’s, and crock pot in for the day and socialized while getting paid over time. I know of a couple of times that workers stashed files in their office trying to hide the fact that they were not working...Its a real mess and hard to fire anyone. I dont think it would be much different with Federal workers.
government workers are the masters of the serfs.
I'm sure that there are many useless federal employees. As usual, this guy writes to hearts, not heads. My Civil Servant husband DOES produce something - trained soldiers, sailors, and marines. And works hard to do it.
...this has made federal workers' lives much easier than those who pay the taxes... Those who PAY the taxes!!! What the hell do they think that 27 THOUSAND dollars that went to the fedgov WAS???
And no, he doesn't make over 100K either.
It isn't where I work, a the Yuma Proving Ground for the US Army. 20 years ago we were nearly all Government workers, my Team had 20 people, and there were few contractors. Now, we are down to 9 people, we produce four times as much product (mostly because of automation), and more than half the workers on post are contractors.
Also, the trend in Government employees is for people with scientific and engineering degrees.
So, as far as I see, there is some truth to this assertion.
Are the government workers overpaid... I often think so. We do get generous benefits, but they are nowhere as generous as those paid to General Motors employees, which I think are outrageous.
They may require education for these jobs but it’s obvious that skill and knowledge aren’t necessary.
It takes tremendous skill and education to drive a golf cart and write out those complex parking tickets. That deserves a 90,000yr salary, don’t ya think? That’s what it pays in my town.
It takes tremendous skill and education to drive a golf cart and write out those complex parking tickets. That deserves a 90,000yr salary, don’t ya think? That’s what it pays in my town.
..... I have no doubt that your statement is completely accurate. But my guess is that you and your colleagues at YPG are probably somewhere in the 90th percentile group in terms of education and skill sets. The question in my mind is what proportion of our 2 million-odd (?) federal employees possess training and skill sets that command compensation so substantially greater than that offered in the private sector? one in twenty? one in fifty? one in a hundred? How many post graduate degree holders work at Fannie Mae sorting mortgages for instance? With the AVERAGE federal employeee compensation DOUBLE that of the private sector, statistics inescapably suggest (to me at any rate) that the lower end of the federal employee spectrum is very well compensated indeed.
A big problem, often noted by astute observers, is that all the incentives in the government are inverse of those in the private sector. In the private sector, there is great incentive to keep wages down and productivity up. There is great incentive to save money. As has been often noted, in the public sector the incentive is to spend money and move wages higher. Productivity is hard to measure, as there is no market discipline.
I do not have the answer to this, but eliminating entire departments seems to be one thing that works.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.