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.

Once An Administration Starts Telling Lies, It Is Nearly Impossible To Stop. So It Goes With Everything Obama Touches!

The Jobs Report Is A Phony

December 12, 2013 by Wayne Allyn Root

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Hello, I’m Wayne Allyn Root (WAR) for Personal Liberty. I am a small-businessman at ground zero. I don’t need Barack Obama, the Fed, economists or the media to tell me how the economy is doing. I live it. And I’m telling you, we’re all being lied to. The economy is not getting better; it’s getting worse.

Back in late 2007 and early 2008, I publicly predicted (numerous times) that we were entering the deepest recession since the 1929 Great Depression. At the exact moment I wrote about this, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was testifying in front of Congress that the economy was fine, we were not in recession, and there was little threat of a serious economic decline. It turned out he was dead wrong about everything. A small-businessman always knows.

In my national bestselling book, The Ultimate Obama Survival Guide, I predicted all of this: the decline of the economy, the death of jobs, the disaster of Obamacare and the murder of the middle class. It’s all happening in front of our very eyes.

Here’s what I know. We have a jobs disaster. The numbers are sobering. Yet the mainstream media is reporting the November jobs report as if “happy days are here again.” Every media headline reports a “fantastic jobs report.” And, establishment D.C. Republicans are so dumb, they accept government manipulated numbers as “fact.”

The truth is it’s all a lie. Obama propaganda. A massive cover-up. A Ponzi scheme aided and abetted by the Obama-adoring, Kool-Aid-drinking mainstream media.

First, are the numbers real? We recently found out in that in the run-up to the 2012 Presidential election, Census Bureau employees purposely reported hundreds of thousands of new jobs that did not exist. They created a false narrative that the economy was improving to fraudulently re-elect Obama. What makes you think that’s not still happening?

Why would you believe the jobs report from the same government that told you: “If you like your health insurance, you can keep it,” “Obamacare will make your insurance rates go down” and, more recently, “The Obamacare website is fixed.” All lies.

Why would you believe anything coming from an Obama Administration so corrupt that it sent the Internal Revenue Service to intimidate a Stage 4 cancer victim within days of his appearance on FOX News criticizing Obamacare.

But let’s assume the 7 percent November unemployment number the national media has made its headline is accurate. Why isn’t the media also reporting the government’s own U6 figure of 13.2 percent? U6 measures unemployment combined with underemployment, a statistic that every expert agrees is the more accurate picture of true unemployment. If a Republican were President, the 13.2 percent figure would be trumpeted in every headline.

But this is only the start of the Ponzi scheme. Assuming that more than 200,000 new jobs were created in November, why don’t the media report on what kinds of jobs are being created? Are these jobs that pay enough to live a middle-class lifestyle and feed your family, or crummy part-time jobs that don’t even allow employees to eat without receiving food stamps? The answer, of course, is the latter.

Once analyzed in detail, November’s jobs numbers will undoubtedly be exactly the same as the rest of 2013. Respected economist and author John Lott reported recently that 96 percent of the jobs created in this Obama economy since January are crummy part-time jobs.

Respected billionaire businessman and publisher Mort Zuckerman disagrees. He says 88 percent of the jobs created this year under Obama are crummy part-time jobs.

No matter which figure you believe, the Obama “recovery” is a mirage. This economy is doing well only if you want a job at McDonalds.

Even worse for taxpayers, of the jobs government claims to have created, almost half aregovernment jobs.

Folks, Obama is using your taxpayer money to create government jobs that actually hurt the economy and raise your taxes. Your typical government employee collects more money in retirement than they made while working. Every government job is a gigantic net loss for taxpayers. This is a disaster. This is one of the major factors for how America wound up $17 trillion in debt — with a massive unfunded liability for government employee pensions. We desperately need private-sector jobs, not government jobs.

But this is no mistake. Obama is brilliant. He wants more and more government jobs, because government employees will always protect their jobs by doing Obama’s bidding (including reporting fraudulent jobs numbers at the Census Bureau, or persecuting Obama’s critics at the IRS). And, of course, they will always vote loyally Democrat and pay union dues (which turn into bribes that fund Democratic candidates).

How bad is the private-sector economy? A new study shows 41 of 50 States have lost private-sector jobs under Obama.

But even that doesn’t tell the full story. I’ll make an educated guess that 80 percent of the few private-sector jobs actually created under Obama belong to big business. Obama’s policies have purposely rewarded his backers in big business, while gutting small business — the economic sector where Americans can achieve upward mobility. If you want people to be self-sufficient, reward and encourage small business. If you want people to become dependent on government, create a “crony capitalist” system that puts government in bed with big business.

Small business drives the American dream. Like my father, who went from butcher to butcher-store owner, and then put his two children through Ivy League university. Jobs at McDonald’s, Home Depot and Wal-Mart are a place to get a start. But only a socialist like Obama (whose goal is to make everyone dependent on big government by wiping out the middle class) would consider creating low-paying jobs for big business a success. Next, of course, Obama dreams of giving amnesty to 10 million to 15 million illegal immigrants, guaranteeing (due to competition) nothing but low-wage jobs for decades to come.

Lastly, the biggest media scam of all is allowing Obama to report unemployment as “improving,” when the major reason for an improved unemployment number is due to people dropping out of the labor force to go on welfare, food stamps and disability. In October, a record 932,000 people simply stopped looking for work.

That’s what causes each month’s “drop” in unemployment. It isn’t jobs; it’s lost souls giving up because it’s impossible to find a job in Obama’s America, or because it pays more to sit at home collecting welfare.

Facts don’t lie:

• Along with the U6, the real unemployment number that matters is the Labor Force Participation Rate. It is at the lowest level since the 1970s.
• The population of America has increased by 16 million in the past 7 years, but there are 1.1 million fewer people working.
• More Americans now receive entitlements than work full time.
• More Americans are on food stamps than there are people in Spain or Greece.
• The 46 million Americans in poverty is twice as large a number as the population of Syria.

The truth is America is experiencing an “Obama Great Depression.” Obama is the greatest jobs killer in U.S. history. And things will only get worse from here. Or did you think a bad economy with no jobs would get better now that Obamacare has been unleashed on the Nation? Obama has attacked business with $1.8 trillion in new regulations for 2014, massive new Obamacare taxes and dramatic increases in the cost of health insurance. And, to top it off, millions of individuals and small businesses are losing their insurance altogether. And in the midst of this, you thought the economy would improve? You believed the lies, fabrications and manipulations coming from this Administration? I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.

Things are getting worse, not better. But Obama, the Fed, government economists and the Obama-adoring mainstream media can’t tell you the truth. Otherwise, we’d have rioting, unrest and perhaps even revolution in the streets. So they just keep lying and denying, while sending out government checks like candy to soothe the masses.

So the greatest Ponzi scheme in world history continues unabated.

I’m Wayne Allyn Root (WAR) for Personal Liberty. Enjoy your family and friends for the next three weeks. Rest up. We’ll fight to save America in the New Year 2014. Until then, merry Christmas, happy holidays and God bless