There's a perception that government workers are underpaid and therefore deserve better benefits than are typically offered in the private sector. The facts offer a different view.
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Monday, May 9, 2011
Public workers: Underpaid or over-appreciated?
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In 2009, The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) found that federal workers were paid on average 22.13 percent less than their private-sector counterparts. The gap increased to 24 percent in 2010. Despite this:
Federal civilian workers are more educated.
The federal government has a higher proportion of white-collar jobs.
Lower-skilled (and lower-paid) positions have been contracted out to private industries in recent years, raising the average pay of federal civilian employees.
Federal civilian workers receive better pension and health insurance benefits on average than private-sector employees, some of whom receive no benefits.
OPM reports that 44.3 percent of federal civilian workers held a bachelor’s degree in 2008. That’s more than double the percentage of private sector employees who have a bachelor’s. The Minnesota Population Center at the University of Minnesota provided comparable data for private-sector employees: 18.7 percent held a BA in 2008.
Consistent with your feudalistic philosophy, you obviously don’t think that skilled workers should be paid any more than unskilled workers. Nor do you value education despite all your ranting about school performance.
Your philosophy would say that a doctor should be paid no more than a bus boy especially if that doctor worked at a VA hospital.
Unduly criticizing public workers without making a distinction between 35,000 to 40,000 merit public servants versus estimated 12,650 non-merit public servants is a gross injustice to merit public servants. Non-merit workers' annual salaries run from estimated $60,000 and go up to $1,000,000 dollars plus, whereas, estimated average merit workers annual salaries are around $30,000! Pension plans for both are defined benefits plans, but non-merit workers' salaries create much more generous pension plans than merit workers' pensions. The old argument has been non-merit workers run risk of being replaced more often, which must have been argued by a non-merit worker. Some legislators bought into this myth.
Skilled workers should get paid more money with the following caveat - they are held accountable to produce the results they are hired to produce. That leaves out your educators, your federal bureaucrats, and your state bureaucrats. They are not held accountable for anything but continuing to breath and show up.
A private sector organization does need to earn money to pay wages and benefits. The public sector employees just lap up unearned money from the tax trough.
http://www.freedomkentucky.org/index.php?title=Rewarding_Failure
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