This Stuff Frosts My Ass

Federal pay: Rank-and-file tops private average, managers fall below
United States

Sometimes the easiest way to find a job that pays well is to ask a wealthy relative to hire you.For many, that relative is Uncle Sam. Federal workers, on average, are paid almost 50% more than employees in the private sector, an Asbury Park Press analysis of salary data shows.The average federal worker made $59,864 in 2005, compared with the average salary of $40,505 in the private sector, according to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.And that pay gap appears to have widened in the first nine months of 2006.The gap may be driven by increased competition in the private sector, where globalization and technological advances have held salaries down. Meanwhile, the federal workforce has no harsh business realities to face, said James Sherk, a labor policy analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington."The government doesn't have to worry about going bankrupt, and there isn't much competition," Sherk said. You don't have to be a rocket scientist at the NASA Space Center near Houston or a high-level bureaucrat living outside of Washington to be able to climb the next rung in the economic ladder. In Martin County, Ind., for example, more than half of the workers are employed at a Navy base that specializes in developing high-tech weaponry. The average $67,478 federal salary there is more than twice the average private-sector pay for that county. In Ocean County, N.J., federal workers on average make nearly double the pay of private workers. In neighboring Monmouth County, federal workers take home 65% more than private sector employees. According to labor statistics for those areas, 10,820 people, or less than 3% of the workers in the two counties, worked for the federal government in 2005. Nationwide, there are 2.7 million federal civilian workers, compared with 113.8 million private-sector workers. The federal salary budget for civilians was $164 billion in 2005.The Press' analysis of salaries in the 3,221 counties across the United States showed:Federal workers are paid twice to 5.6 times the private-sector average in 352 counties in the United States, many in states that border Canada and Mexico.The area with the greatest federal-to-private pay disparity was Nassau County, Fla., near Jacksonville International Airport. There, 577 federal employees, many of them employed at an air traffic control center, were paid an average of $108,275 in 2005. Meanwhile, some 14,000 private workers, many in the tourism and hospitality industries, were paid an average of $29,602.Where job titles could be compared be it for engineers, doctors or food service workers the federal government still paid better than the private sector in three out of four cases.Private industry managers do make more than their federal counterparts in most cases. This is because a cap is imposed on many federal jobs based on the president's $400,000 a year salary. For example, the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey is in charge of all federal law enforcement in the state, but he was paid $145,400 last year. A top job in a law firm pays several times that salary.Experts say federal workers earn more on average than private-sector workers because federal workers typically have more education, they are often unionized and they remain in their jobs longer. Federal workers usually stay longer because of good health benefits, job security and high pay.Harvard University's John Donahue said federal jobs have become the preferred career choice for many workers as manufacturing and other jobs have disappeared."You have a lot of people sheltering in government from an inhospitable private economy," Donahue said.The union that represents 600,000 federal workers cites other reports that contend federal workers are underpaid by about 18% nationally when salaries are adjusted for education and job longevity.But even if federal workers are paid more, the American Federation of Government Employees said that shouldn't be an issue."We do not apologize for the fact that the federal government makes sure its lowest paid employees, who work full time year-round, don't live in poverty," said Jacqueline Simon, AFGE's public policy director. "The federal government is a model employer, as it should be."The greatest pay disparity is most strongly seen in rural areas. There, border patrol or defense industry positions clearly outstrip blue-collar jobs on farms or in mines and timber operations.GOVERNMENT: Fed workers prop up Indiana region's economyIn some cases, the federal government is the major employer in a county, accounting for more than half of the workforce. That is not the case in New Jersey's diverse economy, but the federal government still can have a major impact on local economies.For example, local officials are working hard to keep the federal government in Monmouth County. Fort Monmouth, an Army post, is scheduled to close in 2011.John Poitras, president of the union local that represents 3,000 civilian post workers, does not think many of the Fort Monmouth employees will find jobs outside of defense work.Poitras said surveys and conversations with workers show that more than half of the workforce will retire, and a third will move with the operations to Maryland. The rest will work for private defense contractors.As for finding employment elsewhere in the private sector, Poitras is skeptical."That might be tough," he said. "I can only know what I read, but life isn't good on the outside. They're laying off a lot of people."Others have made a success of metamorphosing their government experience into a private-sector venture.Michael Beson of Neptune, N.J., a former aide to Rep. Frank J. Pallone Jr., D-N.J., who now runs a job-openings newsletter, said he believes there is more opportunity to make money outside of government, even if government work comes with a sense of civic duty."No matter where you work in the government, you help people out," said Beson, 41, an ex-mayor of Neptune. "But you can definitely make more money in the private world. People in the federal government, I think, are making sacrifices."Harvard's Donahue, a former U.S. Labor Department official in the Clinton administration, said that's not true for most workers. He said studies have shown federal pay and benefits to be 3% to 15% higher than comparable positions in the private sector, where high pay is often limited to upper management, he said."We have two parallel economies: One is hyper-capitalism, and one is from the Eisenhower administration, a 'Leave-It-To-Beaver' world," said Donahue, author of the forthcoming book, The Warping of Government Work."The basic story is that government pays everybody the same, no matter their level of productivity," Donahue said. "But the private sector pays people differently. So the government employment becomes a safe harbor from a stormy private economy. It is a backwater. (Yet) government doesn't have the winner-take-all rules that the private sector has adopted."However, the most talented workers and managers among the top 3% all work in the private sector, where they can easily earn much more money, said Donahue and Heritage's Sherk. But the comparatively low salaries for high-ranking government positions dissuade some talented professionals from working in public service, they said.Overall high government salaries can be a drag on the economy if they attract rank-and-file workers who might be productive elsewhere, Sherk said."Wages are the way you allocate labor to what needs to get done," Sherk said. "But when government comes in and offers higher wages, than you mess up those economic signals. You direct workers to those occupations to where their skills are less needed."