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Deficit Reduction: Forget the 1%, Government Workers Enjoy Much Better Pay At Your Expense*

'...there is something perversely inappropriate and immoral with the government model.'

By: LaborUnionReport (Diary)  |  December 17th, 2012 at 09:00 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

For all the exploitive class-warfare diatribe spewed and bandied about by Marxist union bosses and Democrat neo-Coms about the so-called “one percent,” you and your tax dollars are funding a class of people far more dangerous to the U.S. economy than Millburn Pennybags: Government workers.

Assuming most people know about the $16 trillion (and counting) in national debt, if you look a little deeper at the U.S. Debt Clock, you’d see (off to the right) that there are more than 4.3 million federal employees and additional 14.9 million state and local employees–or more than 19.3 million total government employees.

These government employees enjoy pay and benefits that, most likely, you and your children will never see–yet, you are paying for it.

Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its report on employee compensation.

The good news is that the average private sector employee earned $30.80 per hour worked in September 2012. [That's total compensation--wages and benefits.]

The bad news is that the average state and local government employee cost taxpayers an average of $41.56 per hour worked [again, in total compensation] in September 2012.

In other words, state and local government employees averaged $10.76 more per hour than their private sector counterparts.

To make matters worse, attorney Scott Witlin of the firm Barnes & Thornburg recently observed:

According to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median salary for a federal government employee (including the Post Office) was $70,100 per year. For all private sector workers, that number was $43,980. That is, federal government employees are paid 59.4 percent more in salary than their private sector counterparts.

This differential does not include the higher costs of benefits to federal employees that one Congressional Budget Office study recently pegged as being 44.7 percent greater. That same CBO study which attempted to control for factors including educational attainment and regional variations concluded that the wage differential (excluding benefits) between federal employees and private sector workers was 14.7 percent.

Given that the federal government currently spends approximately $200 billion on its civilian employees, eliminating this wage gap would result in significant cost savings to the American taxpayer. Even without adjusting benefit costs (which itself could provide significant cost savings), simply eliminating the wage disparity could provide $300 billion in deficit reduction over the next ten years – all without eliminating a single federal program. [Emphasis added.]

While no one likes to talk about the paring back of wages or benefits, the fact of the matter is, government workers are paid more than the taxpayers who pay their salaries and when taxpayers are working between 30% and 50% of the year to fund the government, there is something perversely inappropriate and immoral with the government model.

In addition, while America is more than $16 trillion in debt, we also have nearly $122 trillion in unfunded liabilities, which no one seems to be focusing on.

Right now, every American taxpayer is liable for more than $1 million in unfunded liabilities.

Washington politicians can tax the 1% all they want. It won’t fix what’s wrong with America because something’s going to have to get drastically cut–fast.

One of the more practical solutions would be to bring public-sector workers in line with the private sector.

The problem is, of course, unions and the hissy fits they throw.

Union bosses have a strangle hold on America and there is no sign they will be letting taxpayers loose unless and until the country declares bankruptcy.

___________________________

“Truth isn’t mean. It’s truth.”
Andrew Breitbart (1969-2012)

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COMMENTS

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  • cardindrake

    This is a huge issue. The majority of the tax increases on the wealthy will only go to pay for the increased salary and benefits of the new federal employees that Obama has hired and the salary increases for existing employees. If you cut every federal employees salary 20%, it is unlikely that more than five of them would quit.

  • loganyung

    A family making $44,000 probably pays about $4,000 in Federal Income taxes. That means that it would take at least 17 private sector employees to break even on just paying the salary of one government employee. This, obviously, isn’t sustainable.

  • commonsenseobserver

    Ugh, all over my…

    Surely we must agree, though, that aligning federal compensation with that in the private sector, and adopting various reforms to encourage productivity and value-for-money, if done in a smart and prudent way, would continue to protect federal workers fairly while also reaping at least some savings for taxpayers.

    At this point, every penny saved means a penny less in debt, and back in taxpayers’ pockets.

    You’re just a liberal troll though.

  • commonsenseobserver

    There IS a substantial difference, especially with the additional benefit of job security for many federal workers, especially for those at the top, with lucrative future opportunities. There must be substantial efficiency savings, bureaucracy must be cut, compensation must be reformed.

    Waste everywhere needs to be cut, inefficiency need to be rooted out, costs need to be kept under control, and that includes the corrupt and costly contractors. The Simpson-Bowles Commission has already proposed some modest savings in these areas. Public services and benefits must be reformed in an era of national stringency, instead of just throwing money at them.

    The Obama administration, the entrenched bureaucracy, and the Left have shown no willingness to achieve serious progress in this area.

    Obviously, they’re not lumped together, just mentioned together.

  • viperscale

    The Federal Government employs too many people. I think states could manage government employees much more efficiently then the Federal Government.

  • gogogodzilla

    How about comparison of government workers and civilian sector employees… *THAT DO THE SAME JOB*.

    We complain that it’s not right with the left says that women make less than men using skewed criteria… yet here we are, doing the exact same thing.

  • becky5

    Most of us understand the dangerous nature of the job for those who work in law enforcement, or as firefighters. Personally, I put you folks in a different category. You risk your lives for others.

    But the busy body bureaucrats sitting in comfortable offices collecting six-figure paychecks with multiple weeks of vacation, multi-million dollar pensions and lifetime gold-plated health benefits while demanding that politicians steal more and more from those of us working in the private sector (for far less) are reprehensible.

  • becky5

    So someone with a Women’s studies degree working in the government printing office making $80k salary (every dime of which is confiscated from productive, private sector workers) for doing what amounts to basic clerical work is somehow more deserving of that salary than a guy with a high school education working as a mechanic?

    My example is not hypothetical, that government worker is someone I know. She may be more educated on paper, but to suggest her work is anymore demanding, let alone more valuable, than the mechanic’s is laughable.

  • commonsenseobserver

    And the private sector.

    But the spread of unaccountable and costly contracting and outsourcing, instead of privatization or mixed ownership, has been an infectious rot.

  • Sir Aaron

    becky5 LaborUnionReport

    Yes, it’s disgraceful. A major part of the problem has been union leaders working with Democrats to get ludicrous benefits. And then certain employees game the system by carrying over leave that is supposed to be “use or lose” and working extensive overtime which counts towards one’s pension. This is worse at the state and local levels because they work modified schedules (4 ten hour days, etc.).
    I’ve been telling other fellow employees that these types of things are not good for us. Because when people come after pay and benefits, they’ll come after everyone’s regardless of our value (or perceived value).

  • galt57

    Count employer-funded health care as taxable income. Let people buy their own health insurance in a transparent free market where they know the prices.