Not Too Bad For Government Work

[LargoWinch]

I think a society is in decline when the best and brightest look for government for highly paid employment (not to be confused with work fullfillement).

Not Too Bad For Government Work
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Thursday, August 27, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Compensation: Americans are fulminating at Washington in historic terms this summer, but here's something to anger them further: With joblessness near 10%, federal salaries are rising faster than the private sector.

Angry constituents at town halls are already armed with a quiver full of gripes. Watch out if the town hell hordes hear about another pricey government injustice: the growing pay advantage of federal employees over private workers.

Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, touched quite a nerve earlier this week when he relayed the latest wage data, categorized by industry, from the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis. "The new data show that average federal compensation is now more than double the average in the private sector," Edwards noted.

He added: "In 2008, the average wage for 1.9 million federal civilian workers was $79,197, which compared to an average $49,935 for the nation's 108 million private sector workers. The federal advantage is even more pronounced when worker benefits are included. In 2008, federal worker compensation averaged a remarkable $119,982, which was more than double the private sector average of $59,909."

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Full Article Here.

[flintlock]

Re: Not Too Bad For Government Work

Gee, higher wages in a field with no competition, who'd a thunk it?

[ggirod]

Re: Not Too Bad For Government Work

I think a society is in decline when the best and brightest look for government for highly paid employment (not to be confused with work fullfillement).

Before one jumps on the bandwagon to fire workers / cut government wages one should remember that ...

1. Low wage government jobs have already been privatized so they now count as private wages, not government wages. That significantly raises average wages for government workers while lowering the average private wages. Now, while the working people get lower wages as privatized workers, the total cost to the government, with corporate overhead for outsourcing, is little different than before. Only the workers really lose in the deal. Surprised? Don't be.

2. Up until now government jobs have not been shipped offshore like commercial jobs have. Thus far the federal government has not yet sought the short term gains of offshoring while maximizing the suffering of American workers and the collapse of the American consumer. Consequently the unconscionable cuts in people's wages cannot yet occur for government positions like they have for corporate positions.

3. Finally, before the corporate mavens and influence peddlers of the nation propose that government jobs pay too much, they should all volunteer to have their own jobs offshored to Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and China as their next contribution to maximize shareholder value. Even the Creme de la Creme, of offshore workers would gladly accept current C-level salaries even WITHOUT BONUSES (gasp!!!) as more than adequate compensation for the 80+ hour weeks those poor exploited domestic CEOs etc. slave to produce. When the CEOs and executives are all offshored or paid at parity, it is definitely time for the government to follow suit and make the kind of deep cuts and savings that cutting back government salaries will produce.