Federal pay surpasses private sector

Maybe I missed it, but I can’t find any info in the HackToday, I mean USA Today, article that would allow anyone to find the specific report that the article is using (USA Today did a similar class-warfare piece a few months ago on the supposed federal salary discrepancy).

As a civil service employee, and a manager, there are a number of obvious holes in this article. Though without access to the original report/data, it’s hard to draw any meaningful conclusions. I’m amazed that the bias here is so strong that folks will take at face value an MSM article, particularly from a source such as USA Today.

(And the commenter above is wrong, there is no blanket 25% retention bonus across the gov’t; there may be a program in certain hard-to-fill jobs, but that would be it. The military does use retention bonuses for pilots and other critical skills.)

- The article first has self-selected a handful of jobs to compare. This tells us nothing, really, as the writer may have chosen those jobs with the biggest disparity – thrown in a few opposite examples for appearance’s sake – to create the biggest shock value.

- The article compares “nationwide” salaries. Yet, we have no insight into the geographic locations used in comparison. Some jobs are also in combat zones or otherwise deployed (yes, including non-military civil service).

- The article states that the statistics come from 216 jobs types with public-private equivalents. But it also notes in passing that an additional 124 Fed job types have no private equivalent. This means that the total number of categories at issue is 340… but more than 1/4 of those don’t even have a private equivalent. Concluding then, that the whole of the public sector is better-paid is somewhat of a leap (even though the article is implying as much).

- Even with those job types with a rough equivalent, it is apples and oranges in many cases. And the mission of a gov’t organization is different. I work in acquisition for large multimillion dollar contracts, and can tell you that my industry counterparts on the other side of the negotiation table earn more than me, with comparable benefits. Same goes for most of my co-workers (who are engineers, accountants, etc)

- Over the past 10 years or so, many Federal jobs were privatized through A-76 competitions and similar programs. Much of my office consists of support contractors who provide technical and other support. Experience has shown that there are rarely cost savings with outsourcing in many cases. And important oversight of programs and procurement contracts was lost since the outsourced contractors could not legally make decisions for the gov’t and ultimately are responsible only to their company.

- I do not have any sort of sweetheart retirement package. I have a 401(k) type plan, social security, and a pittance of a pension that is mostly funded by what I put in.

We’re all just ordinary Americans no better or worse than any of you. We work as hard, or not as hard, as any of you. We do the best we can to earn a living for our families and to do well at what we were hired to do. I see no reason for the seething, hateful comments here. I am not Obama (and as others have noted, Obama did not create the Federal workforce or the Federal employment system anyway) so please direct your disgust at Obama towards him and his allies.

84fiero on March 6, 2010 at 4:07 PM