Are Government Workers Overpaid?

Yes, they are over paid.

In the good old days, working for the government paid less, but, the job security, pension and health coverage made the trade off worth it. Thanks to the unions, they now get the whole cookie........for less work, because there are far more of them than needed.

I won't even start on the teachers wanting $75,000 a year with summers off, along with the various other holidays.

Stange question. Consider the increasing part of the added value generated by private companies devoted to the CEO's and shareholders, and you will ask if workers of the private sector are underpaid!

I can agree that the question is not relevant in the case of traders

We call it http://www.thefreedictionary.com/pork-barreling

Nothing beats a safe voter. The principle goes back to the stone age. I think it started with getting rid of lice and some where better at it than others.

Public employee unions will have to be reckoned with in the next few years.

Their unions unashamedly lobby for pay and benefits that have come to far exceed the private sector's.

The retirement benefits are driving up property taxes two and three points at time, and some elected representatives admit that is not enough to cover the obligations.

You cannot blame the individuals, but the debt may be the issue that finally shrinks the size of government.

Here's a sampling from 08, I think the gap has become much larger in the past 2 years.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-03-04-federal-pay_N.htm#chart

I read something recently saying that total compensation for the average postal worker runs about $70,000 per year. Worst part is, I think the unions have become so powerful, that it will never get reigned in.

This guy has visited the white house of the current administration more than almost anyone else.

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1830

Something really smells here and its not my feet. The USA Today link you provide here states that in 2008 the average Federal pay was $65,591 (20% more than public sector, a plausible difference from the effect of seniority) while the lead to this thread says that the 2009 average Federal pay was $123,049. The average Federal salary did not nearly double in just one year.

Figures do not lie but liars do figure. This reeks of somebody with an axe to grind.

Hey red,

I'm not sure if the USA Today link is base pay, or if it includes pension, insurance, etc. If it's base pay only, the total compensation package would be much higher.

The average $70,000 per year postal salary that I read about was based on total compensation not just wages earned.

It would of been nice of the blogger to provide a link to the source of his/her numbers.

I would like to see a decent reference resource for this issue

I spent some time at the bureau of labor statics, there is so much info & it's organized in a way that is not easy for me to use

Precisely my point. There are many ways that these numbers could mean completely different things. You, kramarat, provided a link that permits a person to look up your numbers, the blog provides nothing but a number. I also have serious doubts as to the validity of that $120,000+ average salary. (Oops, the blog actually uses the more nebulous term average compensation.) Certainly the US military at 1.4 million strong in 2008 is a very large number of workers in the federal government. I do not believe that the average pay of our military approaches six figures. So lets look at pay schedule for just government employees. Of the 150 different pay grades and steps, only two salaries (grade 15 steps 9 and 10) exceed the stated $123,049 pay scale in the base pay level. Now there are 35 regions that have higher pay than the base pay level. These contain the same 150 pay grades. I only skimmed through these schedules. In a few of these schedules there maybe 10% (15) salaries that exceed the implausible average pay.

I also hunted down the Bureau of Economic Analysis web site to see if there was an easy to find report that showed results that were at least similar to the numbers stated by the blog. I did not find a report that agreed with the blog.

Every blog teaser must be written to try and lure readers to the blog pages. But it appears that the blog writer just makes up data to suit a purpose. I hope that this is just some honest mistakes by this blog writer.

1st I'll agree with RF that the anonymous coward GS blogger, did his usual slipshod job of writing, asking what could be considered a political question

I found This on the BEA site which explains the difference, with out actually quantifying it. all the lower paying jobs have been automated or privatized.

We could have a nice little discussion about the cost/saving of privatization

The costs of military compensation is a complex subject, many of the costs coming in the form of benefits after active service is complete, the health care costs alone being astronomical

There is also education

I wonder what the administration costs of hiring preferences for veterans to the overall economy is?

That is an interesting

I'm sure our 'community organizer' is firmly behind the military people - far, far behind - as far as you can get behind!

I suppose he is going to ask for a purple heart for the injury he just took - ı expect that in his mind it is about the same if not more valuable than carrying around a weapon.

You almost can't have a discussion about the military budget as it's one of the sacred cows

A decent diplomat will keep forces from being deployed & lives being lost

the best use of resources is a combined effort between the two

When it comes to privatization is it really cheaper to pay some management company to empty the trash at the department of commerce? & have the guy doing the work not getting any benefits, who then ends up with food stamp or what ever assistance, which is a hidden expense. Then of course there is the extra levels of bureaucracy, the management of the outside contracting company, the government oversight over the outside contractors, so in the end is privatization anything more than accounting trickery to move the expenses on to someone else's budget

back around to the topic. the compensation then looks inflated, because the services now show up as an expense like the lights or heat & aren't being included. In the manufacturing world the accounting might be slightly more accurate, with something like a figure of man hours per ton of trash picked, where the management of the department would be included

It is my opinion that employees in both the private and public sector are overpaid. Naturally, no one will admit being overpaid; from the lowest employee at the bottom rung to the CEO at the top. Capitalism equates to greed at every level and has gotten way out of control. Today someone with little skill can make as much as someone with a college education.

Not talking about unionized labor - In non union situations a person tends to get what they are worth.

A useless fellow with a college degree is still a useless fellow!

Considering the level of incompetence required to become a government employee I would have to answer with a resounding YES.

The University of Minnesota, even with its absolutely dismal undergraduate graduation rates, just hired a new President. His salary, in excess of $400,000 per year! So much for blasting private executive leadership sector pay.

In truth, if it were just the President that would be OK. The real problem is that excessive pay trickles down through the entire organizations..

I don't think military pay is included in these numbers. People in the military are more government property than government employees and the pay is crap.

I'm surprised the government doesn't use military pay in their figures, it would bring overall average govt pay numbers way down way down.

More info:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/federal-worker-salaries-of-150000-double-on-obamas-watch/

This is still going back to USA today, just because another opinion piece using it does make it true

Unlike the blogger, USA Today cites the US office of personnel management as source.

Without actually making a specific reference

& without actually quantifying the over payment, how many of each of the jobs are there

Having applied for a few federal jobs, the requirements are much higher than the same title in the private sector, which comes from excess layers of bureaucratic oversight

Yes, if you work through the short maze of links you find that USA Today does use the US office of personnel management as a source of raw data. They also point out that this "database that tracks salaries of more than 2 million federal workers. Excluded from OPM's data: the White House, Congress, the Postal Service, intelligence agencies and uniformed military personnel." Removing the military salaries and the postal workers from this average seems to me to be a way to skew the data.

And from the other side:

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/10/federal_pay_myths.html

Now I'm really starting to wonder why it's so difficult to get to the truth on this.

Thanks for being open minded enough to bring this link to the debate.

I believe the core to the problem is that there cannot be a single truth here, only biased opinions. Lets look at the questioning term itself "overpaid". The question of "overpaid" will always be a subjective evaluation. Some people think that I overpay my local bartenders with a 30% to 50% tip. I don't call that overpaid. I know how hard they work. (They also help me in ways I won't discuss here.)

Since "overpaid" is an opinion, it cannot be refuted or proven. Politicians know this. Politicians will then use this nebulous concept of "overpaid" as a rally cry wedge to manipulate the public into thinking that they are trying to keep costs down.

Well here's a few personal observations. The Federal employees in question all have tasks to do that are the responsibility of the Federal government. They are doing the work of the government. Many think that the government tries to do to much, but please let's keep that as another debate. All of the employees cited in the American Progress article do not decide on the tasks to be done, they just do the tasks. Now there is a group of Federal funded employees that do help in selecting which tasks will be done, the Congressional staff. Isn't it funny that no politician proposes to reduce the Congressional staff in their budget cutting proposals. It is true that the staff salaries are only a tiny part of the Federal budget but when we should all be doing our part, why are they exempt?

There's also a self fulfilling prophecy here. Many politicians promoting this Federal pay myth also believe that the work done by these employees is incompetent and sloppy. Well cutting the pay of people who are already paid less than the public sector will certainly not promote efficiency.

I agree, I'm not finding the right kind of comparisons

Here is a search from the USA Jobs site from your area, click on a job & check out the requirements & you can see why the pay is so high

this doesn't prove much but is enlightening

The old Penguin Hunter would be right at home, overqualified & not a lick of sense

Alright, I looked at the list........physical therapist $56,700 (government), googled physical therapist pay in private sector.......$55,000 - $70,000, seems about right.

This whole argument is dumb, the problem is that there are too damn many government workers. I've had friends over the years that have been employed by local, state and federal government.......none of them were rich. All of them would admit in private, that the system is rife with waste, redundancy, malfeasance....on and on.

Another big problem is budgets. Every agency has a yearly budget. The single minded goal of the people running these agencies is to get the budgets increased every year, and they will spend every dime on anything to make sure that happens.

My neighbor and drinking buddy is retired highway patrol and worked in administration for the last ten years of his career. He told me that the closets and storage rooms where he worked were stuffed with unneeded new computers still in the boxes. It came straight from the top to spend all money in the budget, and make damned sure you do because we're looking for an increase next year.

This mentality exists in virtually every agency and every department on the federal, state and local level. Combine that with the fact that they've got four people, (or more), doing the job that one could handle and the problem becomes apparent..........and it ain't the individual pay for different jobs.

This isn't an Obama thing, it's been ingrained and propagated for decades...........and guess what......I don't see it stopping. Why? Because the only people that know the true extent of the fraud, waste and redundancy are working on the inside, and they're not about to cut their own throats by telling anyone about it.

People could argue with this too, since I have no proof and only underfunded understaffed agencies like border patrol make the news. I know different because I've heard the stories from the horses mouth. The people that are wasting billions of dollars, we will never hear of.

Unionization is also part of the problem..........the only thing they care about is increasing membership. They don't give a rats ass if any of the jobs are necessary.

Federal workers should not be unionized. Unions were originally created to insure safety in the workplace and fair compensation. Well, the federal government sets the standards and makes the safety rules, pay has to be close to private sector, or no one will work for them. What the hell do they need unions for?

At least here in this state, whenever they want to raise taxes, the only thing we hear is, "If we don't, we're going to have to cut teachers.......it's going to hurt the children."..........................bull$hit. There are little tax money sucking parasite units all over the place that exist in complete obscurity.

Well you inadvertently summed up several of my points. There is waste in many government tasks, but it is not the salaries of the staff. One of the common wastes I see is the mandate that a fixed percentage of all purchases must be made from a small and/or minority owned business. Guess where these businesses get the resold material products, from a large business after adding their additional fees. Often I see the small business do nothing more than add a shipping document pouch to large business's shipping container and now effectively charge for two shipping cycles.

The government employee is not the one profiting from this waste. We just follow the chaotic rules established. Heck, I recently got a package that included a marketing gratuity gift of a chocolate bar with the power semiconductors I had purchased. I did the correct but foolish thing of reporting this gratuity. I had to fill out a report why I did not use one of the approved minority vendors (the manufacturer's vendor that had this part was not on the list) and to report a fair market value of the gratuity. All this for a four ounce chocolate bar with nuts. Oh and a final irony, I'm highly allergic to nuts.

This story is a bunch of BS.

I was an Environmental Manager for 12 years in the public sector. Top rate I made was $45,000 a year, and 4 weeks off. I had to pay 7.25% of my salary into my pension; $75 a week for benefits; and $20 in copay. With an added bonus of no pay raises for 4 years.

For the past 4 years I've been in the private sector. I make over $80,000 a year plus a 4x4 truck and expenses. I also receive 4 weeks off. I put what ever I want in my 401K about 6.0%. I pay $100 a week for benefits and $20 copay.

You're right I was so better off in the public sector.

Engineers in the public sector get half the compensation compared to private sector.

As far as teacher making $75,000 a year maybe if you have 30 plus years in. Fresh out of school teachers make $36,000 a year pretty crappy for someone with multiple degrees and has to mold our country's future.

I don't think it so much that government employees are over paid, although the trades-level seem to be often very pleased to leave a private sector job for a government job. I think it is more that there is too many of them.

Going a step further, when I pound the roads around town every day I am always impressed about the number and size of office buildings. I guess those buildings are filled up with very busy people, but they are not making any product.

So the problem is this fascination with administrative detail that is so common in both the private and public sectors - and most all those people make pretty good salaries, sometimes very good salaries.

Many years ago - more than twenty-five - I used to have a small machine shop that made parts for the machinery I designed, repaired and modified at the time. I used to stand next to the old machinist and talk sometimes, as he took a little material off here or there for me. One time he said, "Nobody is making the shoes anymore". What he meant was he had already realized the departure of manufacturing in favor of the paperwork.

We are in deep trouble, nobody knows how to make shoes anymore, or run the machines. In fact, we don't even have anymore machines - they were all sold to China!

The real kicker with government jobs is pension benefits. Public service personal can retire with 30 yrs of service nearly 10 years before the rest of us with pensions sometimes as high as 85% of the average of their last 3 years of employment.

Take a white female teacher with a life expectancy in the mid 80's, who can retire at 55. If you account for the potential 30+/- years of post retirement income and time off during employment, she's likely making more per hour than highly skilled engineers ...or cut-throat lawyers.

IMO, pensions are the primary money suck. Salaries are secondary. Also, wasteful practices are 3rd (like full time physicians in state house buildings.)

So become a public servant, since it's so great. It not stop the whinning.

I have to say yes, they are overpaid as well as being overcompensated in other ways - holidays that most others don't have, cost of living raises, better benefits, pensions, etc. I've never had a cost of living raise in my entire life!

I disagree with the idea that government workers need a higher level of skill and education. I just haven't found that to be true in any governmental office I've dealt with.

Higher compensation isn't the most troubling issue though. The sheer number of government employees is the truly overwhelming problem. Government has been pushing the private sector out and taking over. Time to take over private sector jobs and decrease the government power and numbers.

Is a government worker overpaid: Does a bear crap in the woods? The government should never pay more than a like civilian job in the private sector. What product does the government ever produce that justifies the exorbitant salaries and that provides a meaningful benefit for the taxpayers that support the government? What they do produce is substandard, over-priced, and so tied with bureaucratic red-tape that the consumer forgets why they wanted the product to begin with.

Have a look at FactCheck.org.

It seems to me that there is a great deal of security associated with government employment, and that it often comes with benefits provided long after one continues to work.

Certainly those working for Wal Mart and McDonalds who often do not even receive a wage that covers what it costs to live would regard government employees as overpaid.

I used to have as my avatar saying: "No Shame in Honest Work.", and I lament the fact that honest hard working people are crushed and reduced to begging, made homeless when they have jobs that do not pay a living wage, no matter how obedient, reliable, or efficient they are.

Frankly we wouldn't need so many government services if everyone who worked at whatever job was available where they lived received a living wage.

For instance I once worked for Piedmont Airlines that paid 12 thousand 500 dollars a year for a Station Agent, whether they worked in Winston Salem, or NYC.

For a great majority of people Wage Slavery is a fact of life. Sure enough people who do not receive a "living wage" will resent government workers who do, regardless of comparisons between public and private enterprise rates.

I could go on here explaining the factors and forces nationally, by state, and internationally, but writing is thinking and here it is free for you.

Screw it, figure it out yourself...

Amount of pay is one aspect, number of workers another.

Compared to the people who actually "create wealth"

Milo

apparently we need a good war, the numbers on the 2nd graph [whatever manemp/paynsa stands for] peaked during WW2

How about some productivity graph comparisons?

[he say leaving a gaping opening than you could drive a train through]

Do people working in schools, hostitals,... create less "wealth" than those working in entertainement, advertising,... companies. I don't speak about our beloved traders.