USA Today‘s lead story on August 10 was about the pay of public workers, a subject reporter Dennis Cauchon has complained about before. “Federal Workers Earning Double Their Private Counterparts,” the headline read, over a lead that reported that “federal employees’ average compensation has grown to more than double what private sector workers earn.”
Well, that certainly sounds unfair–some workers earning twice as much as their counterparts just because they work for the federal government! It’s hard not to agree with the source USA Today brings on from the right-wing libertarian Cato Institute, who says, “Can’t we now all agree that federal workers are overpaid and do something about it?”
Hard, that is, until you read the second to last paragraph, which reveals: “USA Today reported in March that the federal government pays an average of 20 percent more than private firms for comparable occupations. The analysis did not consider differences in experience and education.”
Oh. So when you look at “comparable occupations”–and don’t just put all federal workers up against all private workers, which is what the paper means by “counterparts”–you don’t get a 100 percent difference, you get a 20 percent difference. And that’s without adjusting for differences in experience and education, which you certainly have to do if you want to make an apples to apples comparison. At TheAtlantic.com (8/13/10), Derek Thompson interviewed two experts who did try to account for job categories, education and experience; the expert from the conservative American Enterprise Institute said that federal workers get 12 percent more in compensation than comparable private sector workers, while the expert from the progressive Center for American Progress said that they get 7 percent to 12 percent less.
But USA Today doesn’t even attempt to sort through the compensation for comparable workers. It wants you to focus on that “more than double” figure (which–it shouldbenoted–includes pension and health benefits as well as salary).
So underlying USA Today‘s front-page story is the assumption that in a fair system, all workers would be paid the same amount–regardless of what they do, or how much education or experience they have. The word for this system is communism–a more extreme version than the one they had in the old Soviet Union. Funny, we’ve never seen USA Today embracing radical economic philosophies–except when it comes to lowering public workers’ wages.
P.S. CBS Evening News (8/10/10) picked up on the USA Today story–leading the right-wing News Busters (8/12/10) to complain that “Only CBS Reports on Salary Gap Between Public and Private Employees.”
It is, however, a fact that there are an inordinate number of people in the public AND private sectors who are grossly overpaid. The fact that workers in general are not shouldn’t be used to obscure that fact; indeed, one of the reasons that workers in both the private and public sectors ARE underpaid is at least partially because of the much smaller number who are grossly OVERpaid.
THANK YOU! Thank you for pointing this out finally. It’s ridiculous how the entire nation is so easily hooked on this line. It was like saying that men have more facial hair than women. OF COURSE they do, because they’re men, they are meant to because they are different. I don’t know how anyone could have written or copied such a story without even thinking about the data.
Here I found some graphs, which make more sense than just plain data:
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2010/08/10/federal-employees-continue-to-prosper/
And seriously, I wish more people learned to think…
“Can’t we now all agree that federal workers are overpaid and do something about it?”
I don’t think so, Cato Institute. How about executive compensation? Do the corporate executives make less than the government executives? I understand the HP ex-CEO Hurd could receive $40m severance pay as compensation for his sexual harassment escapade. I don’t think congress people and their staffs make those multi-million dollar salaries – do they? I don’t think Obama and his people make multi-million dollar salaries – do they? When they screw the pooch they don’t have a “golden parachute” to bail out with.
What is not given is the fact that most government employees are in a union and most private employees are not. Probably because the past GOP administrations saw to it that the unions are losing clout and members in the private sector. Which is why the middle class has shrunk so much. All those free trade agreements and corporate give-aways are in fact destroying us. You see the unions made the middle class in this country. Not the corporations. So the question is – are we going to let the corporatists finish the job of destroying us or not?
I agree with Boots. Government workers aren’t overpaid. I took a huge cut to switch to a programming state job fifteen years ago when I tuned forty. Our union does not even get us cost of living pay raises, but that is way better than the free fall wages that corporations, their bought politicians and Free Trade have brought to everybody else.
I must relate my experiences – in 1959 as a new teacher in NYC with a BA degree and working toward a required MA my take home salary was $225 a Month. My fellow high school graduates who got jobs as secretaries in business began earning $100 a week.!! Quite a difference. We teachers then had really no union then . I had to also work during the so-called summer vacation time so as to make ends meet. Luckily at that time (1960s) I could go to City University for free. Not any more. Eventually my union grew and got stronger over the years. If folks think teachers have such a great deal with summers off, why don’t they just get the proper degrees and training and then start teaching in New York City where I did for 25 difficult years. Oh no, they want no part of teaching. So why are they complaining. I put in my years with an additional 2 more Master degrees (Special Education and Reading Specialist) and now have a nice pension, a strong supportive union – The United Federation of Teachers. And a good life – if modest.
So, it turns out that public employees are “overpaid” only in comparison with (grossly underpaid) private sector employees. Probably because nobody’s outsourced those public sector jobs overseas yet, or filling them with temps 6 months at a time, who get paid miniumum wage and no benefits.
“What is not given is the fact that most government employees are in a union and most private employees are not.” [Boots]
“So, it turns out that public employees are “overpaid” only in comparison with (grossly underpaid) private sector employees. Probably because nobody’s outsourced those public sector jobs overseas yet, or filling them with temps 6 months at a time, who get paid miniumum wage and no benefits.” [Jill Herendeen]
Thank you children for centering in on the nub & thank you Judith Kurland too for being the stalwart under trying conditions. There’s hope for this nation yet.
Compounding the problem of comparing earnings of Federal and private sector jobs are the article’s unmentioned values for (i) hours worked and (ii) potential bonuses of varying amounts. These attributes vary in value according to personal, subjective criteria.
I think any analysis would show that when bonuses are included, compensation for management level personnel is significantly higher for private sector employees.
Re-read what you wrote there, Eli. An “inordinate” amount? What? What’s an inordinate amount? You’re just pissed off about all those pampered workers, so you come up with an argument that’s as bogus as the one given by USA Today and those liars and greedy hacks at Cato. The economy is not a zero-sum game. The libertarians hate the Federal Government, unions, and workers in general. This animus drives everything they do and say, so just expect it. The simple argument, in plain terms? “Management must win, and workers must lose.” Notice how wages of the bad, evil, lazy Federal employees must be lowered, rather than, say, raising the wages of the poor “private sector” workers? The pity is, Cato’s relentless bullshit is working.
The problem is not Government workers being paid too much, but private workers paid too little.
A salary of $50,000 today is akin to poverty. The basic white collar administrative worker needs to be paid $120,000 to $150,000 to fully participate in our society.
Moreover, this is a perfectly reasonable salary given that the economies of China, India and other previous sources of low cost labor are increasing their wealth and domestic demand.
So, really, the problem is not a problem as I estimate that by EOY demand for US labor will increase and wages will rise to the given values.
The problem is less the 800 grand payed to that California gov worker, it is the size of the ever growing gov work force.Would you say exploding is the correct term?
But I agree with John.Lets all make more.Who could be against that?And Lets unionize every inch of every job in America while we are at it..Everybody starts at a million a year.If it all crashes the gov can bail it out.If not, because of lack of cash they can just print it.And although a lot of my lib friends told me I was wrong when I said an Obama government would explode government jobs,,,I now am doing a 180.Yes it has exploded but why fight it.Lets make every job a government job …WITH A UNION!Lets unionize the congress.The Senate …The executive branch.After all if it is good for us…. it shall be so for them.Lets redistribute for real.Not just money but everything.Let the government give a poor man a rich mans house.Force those Hollywood lib actors to split evenly their 30 million dollar salaries with the grips, the hot dog venders on set,the lighting people.Brad Pitt clears 13 thou for his latest pic.Sounds good to me.
A salary of 50 grand is poverty????You mean all those census people the gov hired to pad the books, are living in poverty?And only those who make 125-159k can really participate?Obama is in such trouble if any of these figures are correct.
Only the private sector can save us guys.
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just read that here in ohio, republican candidate john kasich wants to eliminate a government department and replace it with a non profit corporation because the private sector would attract more qualified workers since it would pay better! color me confused…
I like FAIR. You’re very good at countering media misconceptions and ideology. So I am especially disappointed to see you repeating those kinds of errors yourselves.
You say communism means paying all workers the same amount, “regardless of what they do, or how much education or experience they have.” That’s neither historically nor conceptually accurate. The Soviets tried out different wage systems at different times, and Marx’s view of communism was, “From each according to ability, to each according to need.” According to Marx, then, the Soviet system was never communist: it lacked the democratic institutions necessary to develop and channel people’s abilities, and its production was not geared to satisfying the needs of the people as a result.
In sum, commies like me support FAIR. Don’t give us reason to rethink our support, please.
marxism 101
Im interested….Do you see our current president as a capitalist?A marxist?Socialist.As you are a man who comes out and states his preference in an honest forthright way……How do you view our president?
obama is at his core an optimist about the possibility of a regulated “sane” version of capitalism. I for one think that so long as we continue to think of workers as things to be rented at the lowest possible price, rather than as human beings whose dignity must be respected and who are the proper locus of control over their own conditions of work (syndicalism, if you must have an ‘ism’ to play with), we are all in a lot of trouble in the short future.