printHow surprised is everyone that, as Cato Institute scholars affirm once again, “Federal workers make substantially more than private workers, not less, in addition to having a large advantage in benefits.”
Says USA Today: “Federal employees earn higher average salaries than private-sector workers in more than eight out of 10 occupations, a USA TODAY analysis of federal data finds.”
“Accountants, nurses, chemists, surveyors, cooks, clerks and janitors are among the wide range of jobs that get paid more on average in the federal government than in the private sector.”
“Overall, federal workers earned an average salary of $67,691 in 2008 for occupations that exist both in government and the private sector, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The average pay for the same mix of jobs in the private sector was $60,046 in 2008, the most recent data available.”
What’s more, “The number of federal workers earning $150,000 or more a year has soared tenfold in the past five years and doubled since President Obama took office, a USA TODAY analysis finds”.
“The fast-growing pay of federal employees has captured the attention of fiscally conservative Republicans who won control of the U.S. House of Representatives in last week’s elections. Already, some lawmakers are planning to use the lame-duck session that starts Monday to challenge the president’s plan to give a 1.4% across-the-board pay raise to 2.1 million federal workers.” … MORE.
[SNIP]
From “Life in the Oink Sector”: “In the private sector a worker is paid for his productivity. If he were overpaid—in other words, remunerated more than he produces—the proprietor would go belly up. No business means no jobs.”
“Set aside the question of whether productivity—output per unit of labor—is the appropriate gauge in an enterprise, government, that confiscates and distributes wealth, but produces nothing. Understand this: Backed by the power of the State, the sponger sector has unlimited access to income not its own—it has the power to tax, borrow and mint money out of thin air. With such usurped authority, why would public debt that runs to the trillions deter the ongoing orgy?”
“By the standards of honest, if unorthodox, accounting, government workers, moreover, don’t pay taxes, but are paid out of taxes. In other words, they pay taxes out of money confiscated from taxpayers, who, in turn, pay taxes twice: on their own income and on the income of members of the bureaucracy.”
At the very least, state workers should not be allowed to vote, since a group that is able to vote itself raises and other perks, will do so with a vengeance. Again, why the surprise? This is why government should not be a source of so many professional parallels. Privatize these positions, the market will sort out the rest.
(1) The “explosion” at $150,000 region is misleading since the top of the “civilian” pay and “executive” pay was right there and 3% accumulated raises on a steeply falling edge took thousands into the new category.
(2) While the Republicans are targeting the civilians, how about Air Force “clerks” who get to “retire” at age 43 and draw a full pension for their next 40 years?
(3) Besides retirement perks, you also have “retired” ex-military Blackwater types who get paid $300,000 to do the job that some uniformed grunt is getting $25,000 to do.
(4) Add in the lobbyists, “lawyers” (most performing governmental-defined make-work), “consultants”, and all the pseudo-feds like Fannie, Freddie, and Sallie.
(5) Add in the banksters, the General Motors, and the Bailout Mob.
(6) Then you have the “University” administrators and overpaid tenured deadweights that assign all the teaching duties to English-impared Nguyen Tran working for $2000/course as an “adjunct”.
(7) Just as VOTERS are hopeless to reign in old porky, private sector STOCKHOLDERS are equally hopeless to reign in executives (like O’ Neal at Merrill Lynch) siphoning hundreds of millions running their companies aground.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/oct/30/6
IT IS TRULY A VERY LARGE PIG – OINK RULES!
The pols learned early on that as the government bloated and bloated beyond control that they became a huge voting block. Now, they are overpaid and underworked to retain the votes. Any politician who tries to remedy the situation will be trying to swim uphill. Civil servants are much like seagulls. They eat, they sleep, they reproduce and they’re protected by the government.
Tom McClintock eloquently suggests to Republicans not to screw it up this time
http://www.flashreport.org/featured-columns-library0b.php?faID=2010111020413874
Myron, you know you can sell your stock, right?
1. I am in no way implying that feds deserve above market compensation but Cato and WSJ are looking at a manicure for a cancer patient. Whether the VA nurse earns $ 48,920 and the nurse at the Catholic hospital earns $ 37,750 is minor compared to the issue of WHY should the government be in the hospital business in the first place (or ANY powers unauthorized by Article 1 Section 8)??
2. Similarly, hiring some schnook GS-7 with a C- GPA from an on-line university to supervise the purchase of a $6 Billion submarine that we don’t need is no panacea.
3. McClintock is a rare good guy and I rooted for him against RINO Ahhnold in 2003.
4. Bob – selling all stock is as viable as emigrating from America. The sad truth is that most Fortune 500 companies are controlled by union pension funds and Soroses who vote their block stock, they hire affirmative action MBA’s like Carly Fiorina and Stanley O’Neal who learn how to mismanage companies and set up personal fiefdoms at the hands of socialistic professors like Krugman and Samuelson. Regrettably, the one engine of economic growth (business) is being destroyed by the socialists.