Pay For Government Workers Higher Than Most Public Sector

Government Jobs: Nice Work If You Can Get It

May 13, 2014 by Watchdog.org 

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This article, written by reporter M.D. Kittle, was originally published May 13 by at Watchdog.org.

MADISON, Wis. — Liberals have spent the past two election cycles frothing at the mouth about “equal pay,” as Mitt Romney’s former deputy campaign manager Katie Packer Gage put it, trying to “paint Republicans as backward cavemen” on the issue as part of their so-called “War on Women.”

But you don’t hear much indignation from the left about equal pay when it comes to the public and private sectors.  They don’t seem offended that heavily unionized public-sector employees, on average, earn more than private-sector employees in like positions.

While it’s difficult to precisely compare government and private-sector compensation due to differences in education, average age and other factors, the general data show government work is a comparatively good gig if you can get it.

A recent Rasmussen Reports poll finds a majority of Americans feels the same. The survey of 1,000 adults, conducted on April 30-May 1, shows 51 percent of the respondents believe government workers not only earn more money than those in the private sector, but also work less and have more job security. Half as many (26 percent) disagree, while 23 percent are not sure, according to the telephone survey, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.

On average, the majority is right.

Private-industry employers spent an average of $29.63 per hour worked for total employee compensation in December 2013, according to the most recent report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Total compensation costs for state and local government workers averaged $42.89 per hour worked, according to the BLS report, released in March.

A study published in 2010 by the Center for State & Local Government Excellence and theNational Institute on Retirement Security asserts the numbers are misleading. The authors, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee economics professors Keith A. Bender and John S. Heywood, insist that, on average, State and local government workers are better educated and have more work experience than do their private sector counterparts, demanding higher compensation.

“Thus, the fact that public sector workers receive greater average compensation than private sector workers should be no more surprising than the fact that those with more skills and education earn more,” the study’s authors conclude.

In terms of salary, the pay differences often are marginal. Depending on the state or local government, public-sector wages are often lower than in the private sector. Wisconsin employees, for instance, earn about 10 percent lower salaries than similar private-sector employees in the Badger State, according to a new study by the American Enterprise Institute.

A 2012 Congressional Budget Office report found that, overall, the Federal government paid 2 percent more in total wages than it would have if average wages had been comparable with those in the private sector.

But it’s the benefits that ultimately tip the balance for the Federal government’s approximately 2.3 million civilian workers who claim a combined $200 billion in total compensation.

“On average, for workers at all levels of education, the cost of hourly benefits was 48 percent higher for Federal civilian employees than for private-sector employees with certain similar observable characteristics,” CBO estimates.

In its latest study, “Overpaid or Underpaid? A State-by-State Ranking of Public-Employee Compensation,” AEI tracks public-sector pay in all 50 states.

“There are big differences state to state,” said Andrew Biggs, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and co-author of the study. “Some states pay over, some states pay less than the market value.”

On average, thanks mainly to generous benefits packages, the public sector earns 13 percent more than the private sector, the study finds.

Connecticut, for instance, pays its state employees 42 percent more than what similar private-sector workers receive, while Virginia pays 6 percent less, according to the analysis.

While Wisconsin public-sector employee salaries are about 10 percent less than similar positions in the private sector, state workers’ total compensation — thanks to very generous health care and pension benefits — comes out about 11 percent higher than their private-sector peers, according to the AEI study.

Wisconsin’s government employees still fare well post-Act 10, Govorner Scott Walker’sreforms of public-sector collective bargaining, according to a report Biggs published in 2012, nearly a year after the law took effect. Though public employees are now expected to contribute 5.8 percent of their pay for their pensions, a private-sector worker would have to save over 30 percent of her salary in a 401(k) to receive the same retirement benefits.

“Nationally, it matches up to what you would expect,” Biggs said. “The states that overpay you expect are going to be union-heavy states like California, Illinois, Pennsylvania,  New York, states with big pension benefits, as opposed to states like Indiana or Virginia.”

And Big Labor can make a big difference on pay scales.

A Congressional Research Service study issued in March finds the wages of union workers may be 10 percent to 30 percent higher than the wages of nonunion workers.

Government Service Merry-Go-Round

If wonder why we have such problems in Washington, the following article by Bob Livingston should clear it up for you. Heck, if Congressmen can easily become consultants and then return to government service, we have an inbred system that does not benefit anyone but those who are in Washington.

We believe that Congressmen should be prohibited for at least 20 years from consulting to the government.  They should not be able to parlay their experience into cushy K Street jobs.  They should also be required to go to their home districts and work there for private industry before returning to Washington after their "banishment."

If we do this, there will not be the attraction to come to Washington and stay for life.
What do you think?

Conservative Tom 

The Stench Of Fascism

January 21, 2013 by Bob Livingston

PHOTOS.COM
Whether you rejoice or are disappointed when a member of Congress is defeated, you should never feel sorry for him. He still has a lucrative career ahead. Same for Congressional staff and upper-level bureaucrats who move back and forth between K Street and various Federal alphabet soup agencies. They are the true 1 percent.
More than 80 House and Senate members found themselves out of work when the 112th Congress closed its session on Jan. 3. They quickly lined up for lucrative positions on K Street: jobs paying six- and seven-figure salaries. Good for them, you say? Yes, it is, but not for you.
“They are attractive,” Julian Ha, practice leader for government affairs at the executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles told The Hill. “Depending on the association and their needs, they can bring a big name and immediately leverage their Hill networks and maybe even senior government contacts to help the association. Members can be very valuable, but associations need to think through their needs and ask what they can bring.”
According to The Hill, former lawmakers increase their salaries from the $187,000 per year they made as public servants to from $400,000 to up to more than $1 million for the right position. And they still get to walk the halls of power and rub shoulders with their former compadres.
They also wield more power. “Lawmakers” don’t write bills; corporations and their lobbyists do. Sometimes those lobbyists are on Congressional staffs, as in the case of the Obamacare bill, which was written by Senator Max Baucus (Fascist-Mont.) staffer and former WellPoint vice president Liz Fowler.
In celebrating the bill’s passage, Baucus had high praise for Fowler.
“I wish to single out one person, and that one person is sitting next to me. Her name is Liz Fowler. Liz Fowler is my chief health counsel. Liz Fowler has put my health care team together. Liz Fowler worked for me many years ago, left for the private sector, and then came back when she realized she could be there at the creation of health care reform because she wanted that to be, in a certain sense, her profession lifetime goal. She put together the White Paper last November–2008–the 87-page document which became the basis, the foundation, the blueprint from which almost all health care measures in all bills on both sides of the aisle came,” he said.
It is essentially the same plan that the health-insurance-industry lobbying firm Health Insurance Association of America — now known as America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) — wrote as Hillarycare in 1992. It’s a plan in which the insurance industry is making out like a bandit, as it is guaranteed millions of new customers and a bottomless Federal Treasury to pay their bills. Yes, it benefits those same insurance companies leftists so stridently loathed for the “unfair” way they covered only those who paid their bills. (Not that becoming entangled in the “deathcare” system that is American healthcare is a goal one should strive for, but that is a topic for another day.)
I wrote last week about Baucus. His former staffers who are now lobbyists all got their clients millions of dollars in special benefits from the recent fiscal cliff deal. In return, Baucus received thousands of dollars in political contributions from those companies’ political action committees. Meanwhile, almost 80 percent of Americans were socked with a tax increase. This is business as usual in Washington.
But it’s even worse when it’s the alphabet soup Federal agencies that are supposed to “protect us” by regulating our food, water, energy, etc. There is a revolving door between Congress, Congressional staffs, watchdog agencies and big corporations.
Typical is the case of Michael Taylor, the Deputy Commissioner for Foods for the Food and Drug Administration. Over his career, he has jumped from the FDA to a law firm representing Monsanto (where he worked specifically for Monsanto), back to the FDA, over to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, back to the law firm, over to Monsanto, to a think tank, to a university and back to the FDA.
During his second tenure at the FDA, the agency’s policies regarding genetically modified organisms (GMOs) were changed to allow them pass without scrutiny. GMOs are hazardous to the people and animals exposed to them, as I wrote here. Unfortunately, avoiding GMOs is becoming an impossible task. And who is the king of GMOs? None other than Monsanto.
About 90 percent of all corn, soybeans and cotton are grown from genetically engineered seeds. The genetically modified products are now found in about 70 percent of all American processed food. And Monsanto controls about 90 percent of all genetically engineered seeds. In other words, Monsanto has almost a complete monopoly on the U.S. food supply. It accomplished this by becoming the fourth branch of government.
And now Obama, the “champion of the working man,” is promoting Jack Lew for Treasury Secretary to replace Turbo Tax Tim Geightner. Who is Jack Lew? Besides being the man with a signature that looks like it belongs on top of a Dolly Madison cupcake, Lew is a revolving door Congressional staffer/K Streeter/Wall Streeter.
As The Washington Examiner reports:
Lew was a Democratic congressional staffer in the 1980s, eventually becoming senior policy adviser to House Speaker Tip O’Neill and executive director of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. When O’Neill retired after the 1986 election, Lew cashed out on K Street.
Lew became a partner at Van Ness Feldman, where he specialized “in energy and regulatory law,” according to a New York Times article at the time. Back then lobbyists and lobbying firms did not need to register as such, but Van Ness Feldman’s focus was mainly Capitol Hill: It was founded by four Democratic congressional aides, and National Journal reported at the time that “lobbying accounts for nearly half the firm’s work.”
With Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, Lew passed back through the revolving door, serving eight years in the White House, including a stint from 1998 to 2001 as director of the Office of Management and Budget.
After that, Lew spent a few years as an administrator at New York University before going to Wall Street.
In June 2006, Lew joined Citigroup, one of the five largest banks in America, where he worked under fellow Clinton alumnus Robert Rubin. In January 2008, Lew became chief operating officer of Citi Alternative Investments.
Lew’s CAI unit engaged in exactly the sort of activity that Democrats blamed for the financial collapse and have aimed to ban through legislation: “proprietary trading.” That means Lew’s unit was investing Citi’s own money as opposed to helping clients make money.
Following Citibank’s bailout with taxpayer money, Lew pocketed an almost $1 million bonus from the financial services firm. So whose interests do you think will be forefront in Lew’s mind has he writes monetary policy?
This is the fascist system under which we currently exist. It’s fascism under the sweet-sounding name of democracy. It sounds sweet but stinks to high heaven.