Boom Time for Federal Employees
Tags: Tax and Spend Liberalism.
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The story:
The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal salary data.
Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months — and that’s before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.
Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time — in pay and hiring — during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector.
This is horribly wrong – if anything, the federal workforce should be undergoing reductions in order to control spending. But what do Obama and the liberals propose? Much, much more of the same. This is insane! We need more people creating wealth, not more draining of our economic lifeblood to boost up AFSCME Union numbers, and donations to the Democrat party.
Message to everyone hired since January 20th: don’t get too comfy. You’ll be forced out soon – and that isn’t a threat, its a promise.
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26 Responses to “Boom Time for Federal Employees”
Caucus of Corruption
Isn’t this the only part of the job sector that is growing? And this is before the 110+ NEW departments and agencies due to be added to administer the “health care” bill.
At least this is one sector that won’t have Mad Daddy sneering at it for being too productive instead of just hiring more people…………..
I believe you are correct, Amaz…or at least, if there have been any jobs created or are expanding in the private sector, it’s insignificant compared to the staggering number of government jobs being pulled out of Obortion’s hat.
Me, I think that as long as unemployment is over 5% and deficit spending is over 1 billion, and until term limits are instituted for both houses, no one working on the taxpayer’s dime should be getting a raise.
Every job I’ve ever held, my raise was based on my performance. If I sucked at my job as bad as these DC hacks on both sides of the aisle, I would have been shown the door…head first.
id like to see the demographics of these govt jobs.
I believe they would not be representative of population.
You know, we have a few billion that were not spent on TARP, and a few billion more coming in from banks repaying their loans—-why not apply that money to the deficit?
Oh, yeah, that’s right. It’s TAX dollars, therefore free money just lying around waiting to be applied to further enlarge government, create more government agencies, and get more people on the government dole.
No, neo, these jobs will not be going to the formerly productive. They are designed to create a new dependency class, dependent on the government and thereby guaranteed to keep voting for those who will keep the trough filled.
Our problem (as discussed many times before), is that we have a completely financially illiterate administration. Obama, or Pelosi, have never managed any private business entity, have never had to trim costs to meet payroll, have never had to manage debt to assets to stay credit worthy, have never had to measure ROI on any business decision. They are simply the most ignorant, mind numbingly stupid leaders this country has ever elected, and I am outraged at their incompetence and the morons that continue to support these ass wipes.
More blatant deception from the party that hopes to destroy America. Let me know when the armed revolution begins.
The Democrats want to raise the debt ceiling by $1.8 trillion, but don’t want to make their members cast a publicly visible vote. So what do they do? They use their current favorite trick–attach the debt ceiling to the bill that funds America’s military. Who could vote against that?
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/12/025134.php
Part of what is driving the increase in government jobs is the ongoing DoD conversion from contractors to civilians. The number of contractors supporting the military has exploded over the last 8 years. With two wars going on, it was a conscious decision by the administration to take the short-term higher cost of contractors rather than the long-term cost of government employees. That way they could pay for them with Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) funding. They also would not incur the long-term obligations of having federal employees. One problem with this was that they had contractors performing inherently government functions (IGFs) (interrogations are one example of an IGF.) It is prohibited by law for contractors to perform IGFs.
IIRC, around Jan 09 Secretary Gates directed the DoD to evaluate all of their contractor positions. The direction was that if a position involved IGF and it was a necessary position, convert it to a federal employee. All branches of the military are in the middle of that process right now. How much of the increase in federal employees counts for, I don’t know.
When these positions are converted, the contractor currently performing those duties is typically the leading candidate to be hired. He has the institutional knowledge and can do the job from day one.
In order for the government to hire the best qualified candidate, they have to offer a competative salary. The last 8 years has led to a situation where demand was outpacing supply, thereby driving contractor salaries up. It has become the norm for a field grade officer retiring after 20 years to receive a starting contractor salary in excess of $100K. Whether or not the person is worth it, that is what his market value is.
I think conversion may actually be a large part of this. Most defense contractors that have been converted that I know get hired at GS-13 and take a pay cut to get hired. If you look at the General Schedule (GS) pay scale, you don’t hit $100K until GS-14, Step 7 (this is the scale that is not adjusted for location.) You have to have at least a Master’s and a lot of experience in the field to qualify for GS-14. You need at least a Bachelor’s to qualify for GS-5, which starts at $27K.
kmg,
Right now, none should be hired and all of them should be taking a pay cut. Is this all just too difficult for you to understand? I mean, with millions out of work, this isn’t the time to be increasing government payroll and boosting lavish salaries.
The work still has to be done. You can either pay a defense company $200K to do work that is prohibited by law or you can hire the contractor as a government employee at $100K to do the same work legally. There is one other choice, though. You can just not do the work that supports the warfighters and save all the money.
The people I’m talking about are all former or retired military. They don’t really fit into your characture of federal employees. In fact a lot of them are more right-wing than you.
Now you are back to the purge you proposed 6 months ago, but really abhor today? I’m sure the veteran’s groups in Nevada would love to hear your plan to summarily fire those who served their country.
kmg1,
Do you swallow Obama, or spit it out?
The highest-paid federal employees are doing best of all on salary increases. Defense Department civilian employees earning $150,000 or more increased from 1,868 in December 2007 to 10,100 in June 2009, the most recent figure available.
When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.
The trend to six-figure salaries is occurring throughout the federal government, in agencies big and small, high-tech and low-tech. The primary cause: substantial pay raises and new salary rules.
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20091211/1afedpay11_st.art.htm?loc=interstitialskip
kmg – defense contractors indicate an undersized military.
I support the draft being reinstated & diversions outta the courts.
kmg,
Cluster nailed your worthless talking point better than I could.
Its a recession – its time for staff and pay cuts in government, just like private is undergoing.
cluster,
You’re the only one I know who swallows.
I would be interested to see the database USA Today got their numbers from. You don’t make $170K unless you are an SES-4 or 5, equivalent to a 4-star General. I have a hard time believing that the Transportation Department went from 1 to 1,690 SES-4 and 5s in 18 months. Or that DoD went from 1,868 to 10,100. I also would like to know if those numbers take into account retired flag officers brought back as consultants to the Pentagon, as well as the additional pay civilians receive when deployed to a combat zone.
Mark,
Talking point my ass. I provided specualtion as to what could be part of the increase and backed it up with facts.
Put on your supposed candidate hat and tell us what percentage you would cut the DoD workforce in wartime. Or do percentages not matter? Would you just fire all those you believe to not be conservative enough?
Also, the USA Today article says this:
But, acording to a <a href=”http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/08/24/federal-pay-continues-rapid-ascent/”CATO Institute report from Aug 09, the average federal wage in 2008 was $79,197.
So, who do you think is right, here? The CATO Institute or USA Today?
Damn. Screwed up the tags.
KFC
postal workers salary $52,747.00 PLUS BENEFITS for a job a monkey could do.
(sorry I have relatives who are PW —but camon)
KFC
kmg1 says:
December 12th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
cluster,
You’re the only one I know who swallows.
………………………………….
well you forgot monica, larry sinclair, barney fa…er frank, all of nambla (all gay donks) and to many other donk rats to mention.
which party do YOU belong to KFC???
FUBO
fmr,
And where does that $52K postal worker fit on this pay scale?
They would either be high-level management or they would have been working for the postal service for a very long time.
KFC
5 years or more….not to long of a time.
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=U.S._Postal_Service_%28USPS%29/Salary
I think there is something wrong with your chart, fmr. If you look at the chart for salary by years of experience, the average for less than 1 year is almost $52K, but it is $58K for 20 years or more? That is well under 1% per year for pay increases when federal workers typically get 2%-3.5% each year.
What I posted is the official USPS pay scale for 2008/2009. In order for the average to reach $58K in 5 years, almost everyone would have to be hired at the top of the pay scale.