The underworked public employee
[S]upporters of more federal aid implicitly assume that the size of the public sector was optimal before the recession. On the contrary, overstaffing is a serious problem in government, and the best evidence is a simple empirical fact: Government employees don’t work as much as private employees. If public-sector employees just worked as many hours as their private counterparts, governments at all levels could save more than $100 billion in annual labor costs.
How do we know that? Are we just dredging up well-worn stereotypes of government employees enjoying shorter work days, prolonged sick leave and extended vacation breaks? In fact, new evidence from a comprehensive and objective data set confirms that the “underworked” government employee is more than a stereotype. …
What we found was that during a typical workweek, private-sector employees work about 41.4 hours. Federal workers, by contrast, put in 38.7 hours, and state and local government employees work 38.1 hours. In a calendar year, private-sector employees work the equivalent of 3.8 more 40-hour workweeks than federal employees and 4.7 more weeks than state and local government workers. Put another way, private employees spend around an extra month working each year compared with public employees. If the public sector worked that additional month, governments could theoretically save around $130 billion in annual labor costs without reducing services.
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…and small business owners work every moment they are awake.
roy_batty on December 5, 2012 at 8:30 AM
And that doesn’t count the stuff that they do which doesn’t actually need to be done. Do we really need a Department of Energy? Does it actually produce any energy? It does produce bureaucrats and blowhards advancing their pet agendas (and Al Gore’s) but does it actually DO anything for us? It was created during the Carter era to help “solve” the energy shortages of the 1970s (mostly brought on by other government policies) and seems to exist mostly because it exists.
Marxism is for dummies on December 5, 2012 at 8:37 AM
A few years ago I was remodeling a bathroom at my house and had to go pull a permit. The Houston city office closed at 4:00 and I got in line for the permit at 3:00.
I finally got called inside around 3:30 and was directed to a cubicle where a nice lady reviewed my plans. She had no problems, but then noticed at the last minute that a corner of my property touched a floodplain and thus needed approval from some other department.
“They’re just around the corner and there is no line. Run over there and come right back and I’ll approve your application. Just walk back into my office and I’ll be waiting for you.” It was 3:55.
So I run around the corner and she’s right, no line, and the guy immediately starts typing my info in a computer and approves the “flood” part of my application. It’s exactly 4:00.
Then I run back to the office where I was. This city employee was gone, her desk tidied up, computer turned off, lights off.
I moan in exasperation and another lady walking through the room asks if she can help. I tell her what happened and SHE LAUGHED IN MY FACE.
“Honey, it’s 4:00. We’re closed. You gotta come back tomorrow.”
Ladies and Gentlemen, YOUR government employees in action!
jr.ewing.78 on December 5, 2012 at 8:44 AM
How very true. There are very few rewards for owning your own business. Being a government employee, whether state or federal is so, so much better. You don’t risk your own money and you know your pension will be there when you retire ……………. which will be much earlier than any 99.99% of all business owners.
SC.Charlie on December 5, 2012 at 8:44 AM
To be fair, a lot of government, state & federal, do work hard.
And then there are the LEGIONS of lazy a$$ worthless pieces of $hit that they work with who drag them down and make them wonder WTF they ever entered into the job in the 1st place.
Badger40 on December 5, 2012 at 8:47 AM
Private sector workers work harder and more efficiently.
Basilsbest on December 5, 2012 at 8:51 AM
I am a small business owner and a state government employee (HS teacher).
Being a teacher helps me stay available to work when I get home on our ranch.
The hours I work are sweet for what I get.
I work 182 days per year, get 10 days sick leave per year I can bank, and 3 personal days per year that I can bank up to 2 of.
And teachers effing whine about this?
I remind my co-workers of this all the time.
But I will tell you that if they made this job a year round job, I’d quit in a heartbeat.
Raising and babysitting other people’s kids is the most stressful thing I’ve ever done.
And I’m real close to quitting now anyway.
Badger40 on December 5, 2012 at 8:52 AM
Indeed.
My experience observing a typical day of the California state worker:
Check in and turn on computer.
Take a coffee break.
Talk to your pals for awhile.
Get about 2 hours of work done at your desk.
Talk to your pals or screw off on the computer.
Take lunch.
Come back from lunch and talk to your pals for awhile or screw off on the computer.
Work for a couple hours.
Talk to your pals for awhile or screw off on the computer.
Shut it down and go home.
keebs on December 5, 2012 at 8:58 AM
Blood pressure up reading that.
roy_batty on December 5, 2012 at 8:59 AM
Never, ever get between a govt. worker and the front door at 4:00 P.M. You’ve been warned.
tommyboy on December 5, 2012 at 9:01 AM
Isn’t that rather obvious??
Funny we need an “official” analysis for the one thing that no one would argue…public employees are overpaid, under-worked, and over protected from firing.
The sun will rise in the morning and set in the evening…it has from the beginning of time, and bureaucrats have abused the system from the beginning of time.
right2bright on December 5, 2012 at 9:05 AM
And they didn’t build that. Someone else made that happen.
Paul-Cincy on December 5, 2012 at 9:09 AM
Underworked and overpaid.
petefrt on December 5, 2012 at 9:11 AM
Ever been audited by the IRS? This is what I did…make every appointment at 3:30, and then stall around…if your timing is right, Friday’s are best, next to the day before a holiday…I made mine 3:30 Wednesday before Thanksgiving, it drives them nuts as you fumble for paperwork and files “you left in the car”. All your paperwork spread out on her desk, on the floor, and it’s approaching 4 pm, and she had a flight to catch…goodness, amazing how quickly she approved my terms, no payment, no penalties, just get out of my office you bungling fool…
3 times I was audited and used the same tactics each time…the last time it didn’t work, she was someone with nothing else to do…my mistake, change auditors until you find a young girl that parties.
right2bright on December 5, 2012 at 9:11 AM
One of the reasons for the fall of Rome — excessive civil service salaries, and unfunded pensions. What’s old is new again.
Paul-Cincy on December 5, 2012 at 9:11 AM
Badger for Secretary of Education 2012 !
petefrt on December 5, 2012 at 9:14 AM
I work year-round technology for the school district. Other than summer and in-service days, I’m off when my boys are out of school. And since my husband is a nurse and can work odd hours, I know I can be home shortly after the kids are, and can supervise them.
Vacation has mostly been used for doctor appointments and doing what I could for this past election (conventions, working the polls, etc). If I’m out for one day when my customers aren’t, the work piles up!
Then again, I’m in Texas. The only things they insist I not do are things that involve climbing and disassembling projectors on the ceiling. Most of the stuff I pass to other departments are projects that could take hours of my time while tickets pile up, and are aimed at my efficiency, not making work per union rules.
Sekhmet on December 5, 2012 at 9:25 AM
I am told I MUST scram at 4:30, because my department can’t afford the overtime. Agencies are scared of expectations of working off the clock, because agencies have been sued for overtime for having this expectation.
Sekhmet on December 5, 2012 at 9:29 AM
For the first 150 years of American history, not counting the military, less than 1% of Americans lived at taxpayer expense. Today that’s around 50% — and still growing. At least most welfare recipients are only paid to use drugs and have children out of wedlock.
But “civil” “service” “workers” are much worse. The time they get paid to goof off is less than the tip of the iceburg. And even the vast majority of unproductive hours they actually spend in the office don’t hurt that much.
What’s most harmful about them is the COUNTER-productive work they actually do; churning out thousands of pages of new regulations telling the people who pay their salaries how to live.
logis on December 5, 2012 at 9:30 AM
Work always fills the available time. Little work will take much time if available.
BullShooterAsInElk on December 5, 2012 at 9:30 AM
My husband is a state employee in New Jersey. He works hard and many long days, since he is a litigator. But many in his group don’t. Lots of them “work to the rule,” meaning they are in at the stroke of 8:30 and gone at 5. There is nothing the bosses can do to make them work longer hours (and this is not yet a union shop, the situation is much wiorse in the unionized departments.) And of course, none of the secretaries are there after 4:30, so if he is finishing up an order that has to be filed in court by 5:00 he ends up typing and copying it himself and racing to the courthouse to file it. He represents a state agency and constantly complains that staff from that department miss meetings, won’t schedule them after 3:00 p.m., etc.
I worked in a federal agency for 8 years in the 1980s, and saw both very hard workers and complete slackers. There were several known alcoholics at this agency who were regularly drunk every day by 2:00 p.m.
rockmom on December 5, 2012 at 9:32 AM
My first job out of college was a 9-month gig in the “elections department” for the county. I was dismissed after six years — taught me everything I needed to know about government work (although not all the lessons were readily apparent at the time).
I routinely work after 5PM at my current – private-sector – employer, and I catch a minor amount of flak for it. If something comes across my desk at 4:55PM (which is very, very common – how strange), I do what I can to take care of it before I leave. This means I frequently have 15 or 30 minutes of overtime on my timecard. I’ve been instructed by my manager that we/the office closes at 5PM, but I counter that our customers do not close at 5PM, and it’s very often better for me, the company, and our customers to tackle a 10-20 minute task that gets dropped on my desk at 4:55PM rather than wait until the next business day. I get a fair amount of blank looks… though I suppose that’s preferable to a write-up for insubordination.
Jeddite on December 5, 2012 at 10:19 AM
But in government, there’s no incentive to reduce staff size. Government thinks hiring people to sit around and do nothing is “putting people to work”. In reality, Government removes those people from jobs where they could otherwise contribute to society. Not only does bloated government cost more, but it lowers our total productivity. It’s a double whammy on our national and personal wealth.
hawksruleva on December 5, 2012 at 11:20 AM
And that’s a GOOD employee.
hawksruleva on December 5, 2012 at 11:25 AM
There was a story recently that the average federal worker for a given role is paid a higher salary with greater benefits than a worker in the same role in the private sector.
That’s the kind of unsustainable BS that has smothered every European country with the possible temporary exception of Germany.
CorporatePiggy on December 5, 2012 at 11:38 AM
Have you noticed when the post office opens on week days, lately?
Schadenfreude on December 5, 2012 at 11:38 AM
Marxism is for dummies, your nom…it is for the exploitation of dummies.
Looters in Marxism live like the Obamas do, and exploit the moochers to the hilt, keeping them dumb and in bondage, in modern day plantations, for votes/propaganda only.
Only fools believe anything else.
Schadenfreude on December 5, 2012 at 11:41 AM