Update: WSJ cites U.S. Department of Labor statistics that show that unionized public sector workers now outnumber unionized private sector employees. We're becoming Europe.
Mayor McGinn's difficulty in cutting senior staff reminds us why growth in government jobs should be resisted in the first place. We are dismayed to see the rapid increase in federal employees under the Obama administration. From a WSJ editorial on the subject:
"Civilian full-time equivalent employees," as they're known in budgetese, held relatively constant before Mr. Obama came to Washington, but they surged to 1.978 million in 2009 from 1.875 million in 2008. In fiscal 2010, the Administration expects to add another 170,000 workers--a 14.5% leap in two years.I guess this explains why United Van Lines moved nearly seven families to Washington D.C. last year for every three it moved out. The average federal worker, according to USA Today, makes something like $70,000, while the wage of the average private worker -- the ones who support federal workers -- is about $40,000. This trend is marching us along the path to poverty. Posted by Carter Mackley at February 02, 2010 01:06 PM | Email This
Also, remember that under Bush, that he off-budgeted the Wars and other DoD expenses, that Obama included in his budget. The difference could be explained by this fact alone (e.g., DoD civilian staffing that was funded off-budget under Bush).
Finally, your last paragraph is a bogus argument because it compares different workforce makeups. A large part of government workers are white-collar/professional (e.g., college degree required) positions. One cannot compare the average wage so generically. One must compare for same type of work, like average engineer wage versus private sector engineer, average analyst versus private analyst, or average admin assistant (GS-5 to 7) vice private sector admin assistant. I do know on the engineers and computer scientist fields, that government pay is still behind private industry, thus the reason for special rate pay in these fields. I believe in some other fields (like management analysts) the pay may be a bit higher in government.
One big area in federal government and state government that should be pulled out and addressed is management levels. The number of managers per employees (I believe) is high in both federal and state government. Addressing this issue is where the biggest bucks can be saved, instead of addressing overall employment levels.
Posted by: tc on February 2, 2010 02:10 PM