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    FCW Insider: Are feds overpaid?


    Are feds overpaid? Yes, according to the Cato Institute's Will Wilkinson. (Read his blog, The Fly Bottle.)

    Wikinson had a commentary this morning on the Marketplace Morning Report on public radio that was originally about a United Nation's proposal to set a minimum wage for the world's poor.

    Then he said this:


    After the tech bust of 2001, incomes in Silicon Valley and New York City drifted closer to the national average, and inequality between American counties declined. But then with the advent of the Global War on Terror, the District of Columbia and surrounding counties began to enjoy outsized gains in average incomes.

    So far, the "military-industrial complex" is the one clear winner in what has been a $1 trillion war. But it's not only security and defense contractors, and the lobbyists who love them, who've been pulling ahead on the taxpayer dime.

    According to the U.S. government, compensation for the average federal civilian worker in 2005 stood at over $106,000. That's double the average for private workers. That's top 5 percent of the personal income distribution. And average wages for a federal worker rose 5.8 percent that year, compared to a 3.3 wage hike in the private sector.

    But who knows? Maybe all these new federal office buildings really are hives of extraordinary productivity. In San Jose, they make software, in Detroit, they make cars, and here in D.C., we make memos about meetings about regulations -- very efficiently. Maybe we Washingtonians deserve our good fortune.

    Alas, according to a recent Pew Research poll, the federal government's favorability rating has plummeted to a 10-year low. If taxpayers are getting what we're paying for, we don't seem to know it.

    But, hey, you just wait until the next guy gets into the White House. He's really gonna clean this place up.


    You can read or hear the whole piece here.

    I'd be interested in your thoughts -- are feds overpaid?

    UPDATE: A friend sent along this Web site: http://www.fedjobs.com/pay/pay.html. It lists the pay schedule and steps.

    Posted by Christopher J. Dorobek on Jul 02, 2008 at 9:17 AM


    Reader comments

    Wed, Jul 9, 2008 Tom Colangelo

    Having been on both sides of the fence (Govt and industry), I believe there is considerable comparability in compensation. The real problem on the Government side is position classification and grade. Some positions, particularly in the National Capitol Region, are under graded; however, far too many are over graded. I've heard many reasons from over graded incumbents why their positions require the grade they have; non have passed the common sense test.

    Thu, Jul 3, 2008 HW Rixon

    Cato is a standard example of what's known as "wingnut welfare" or "conservative welfare". Otherwise-unemployable hacks are nurtured in well-subsidized sheltered workshops like Cato, where their conservative indoctrination never needs to be buffeted by reality.It's all part of the plan that was first laid out by former Nixon Administration member William Simon in his books *A Time For Truth* and *A Time For Action* back in the late 1970s. Simon, as head of the hyperconservative and hyperfunded Olin Foundation, was able to found and fund a number of conservative pundit hatcheries and to convince businessmen to stop funding universities, groups and media entities that didn't hew to a conservative line. He used new conservative groups to train pundits and then send them to do battle on talk shows and bludgeon their way onto newspapers' editorial pages and colleges' Boards of Trustees.

    Thu, Jul 3, 2008 Jay Logan

    There is plenty of truth to both sides of this issue. I think the main reason the government average "compensation" is so high is that it is overloaded with higher paid managers making all sorts of rules (many bad, which is why it is so inefficient) and not many workers that actually get things done. Another thing causing the big difference is that there are not a lot of "burger flippers", part time jobs, and other lower paid types of jobs in the government as in the private sector.

    Thu, Jul 3, 2008 Rick Burke

    I note that Mr. Wilkinson didn't bother to compare gov't salaries with those of lobbyists, contractors and other white collar workers in DC. I could go to almost any private firm and ear 25-50K MORE per year for the same duties I have now. Overpaid? Who is he kidding.

    Thu, Jul 3, 2008 Rick Burke

    I note that Mr. Wilkinson didn't bother to compare gov't salaries with those of lobbyists, contractors and other white collar workers in DC. I could go to almost any private firm and ear 25-50K MORE per year for the same duties I have now. Overpaid? Who is he kidding.

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