Reasonable Salaries
The debate's been heating up in comments over at a story I wrote on Friday about whether $100,000 is a good threshhold number to use to talk about federal pay. Beyond that question though, I think it's important to understand that patterns in pay are the product of long-standing system and of long tenure, and that it probably doesn't make a lot of sense to radically change compensation policy in response to fluctuations in the economy.
While the economic situation is grave, and its impact on many American families is extremely serious, the recession also isn't going to last forever. I have neither a crystal ball nor a sophisticated economic model to hand, so I can't say how long it's going to last. But immediately slashing federal salaries is something that would take time to pass and to implement, and by the time it was implemented, it's entirely possible that the economy would have recovered. Reversing those cuts would then take additional time, during which the federal government would be disadvantaged in comparison to recovering private sector firms. Because a lag is inevitable, it's impossible to make public sector pay match the economy's rise and fall inevitably, and following behind those economic curves probably would do more harm to the government's ability to recruit and retain qualified employees than it would help reduce the deficit or impart a sense of fairness to laid-off Americans.
And really, federal pay is going to look a lot lower on the aggregate when an entire cohort of long-tenured, highly-paid federal employees retires, and is replaced by workers starting at much, much lower salaries. Those employees' salaries will rise over time, of course, but so do most people's, commensurate with experience. Higher federal salaries are a rising and falling curve rather than a permanent condition, and folks would do well not to get in a permanent panic about it.
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Many of your points are well taken, most importantly, the shift in the rate of compensation that will occur as people in my generation retire from federal service.
Yes, some feds (such as myself) do get paid a higher wage than the average. I would observe, however, that I spent most of my career (to date about 25 years) earning significantly LESS than the average. I started out as a GS-5 under the Reagan Administration. I was making 14,390 per year as a police dispatcher when the city dispatchers were making about $28,000 per year. I worked my way to a management position (under a different agency) in 2004.
My pay is not a result of some magical "gift" by the government. It's the result of a lot of hard work and longevity in my position. There are no more police dispatchers (in my old agency) as that position was outsourced.
I am plagued by one question, however, and perhaps someone can answer it:
When did discussions of wages and compensation turn into a bitter demand that everyone join in the "race to the bottom" of the pay pool?
Perhaps it's a way to avoid facing the fact that compensation, in the private sector, has been artificially depressed through job consolidation/mergers and outsourcing. I wouild close by asking those angry individuals, demanding federal employees take pay cuts, one simple (additional) question: Is it right that CEOs make 300 times what the average workers make, given that many of these companies have either foundered or abandoned their responsibilities (such as retirement plans) to the public purse (the resolution trust corporation)? Is that your metric for equitable compensation?
Cicero Posted Tuesday, March 9, 2010 5:18 AMNowhere in this debate is the long standing debate over pay pariody.
Congress passed a law so that federal gov't employees would come up to parity with their private sector counterparts.
Both political parties ignored this mandate, and ther was no complaining in the private sector when the economy was good and many were bringing in large bonus checks.
Now that the economy has hit a downtown, the mob mentality is to attack federal employees who have been nearly invisible during good times.
There definitely needs to be reforms in the federal workplace and efficiencies can be found easily if looked for, but knee jerk political tactics using fed employees to as a scapgoat to garner votes back home is the act of a desperate representative.
Tim, Arlington, VA Posted Tuesday, March 9, 2010 8:30 AM