I would like to see that myself but why would you expect it to be much different? Tax rates for medicare and SS have not changed much over the years and, as opposed to income taxes which can change depending on your salary, SS and medicare taxes won’t change that much.
I am familiar with Hauser’s Law…here is a recent op-ed he wrote on the topic that explains why he thinks the ratio is constant…and why now is a bad time to raise taxes on anybody.
I don’t think anyone is claiming that raising taxes will put us in a death spiral. The question is whether an increase in any tax rate will have a drag on the economy. At least two of Obama’s economic advisers agree that it will:
Are you saying that the numbers I cited are wrong? Because your cite does nothing to make them seem wrong (it just seems to use some previous year for their data, none of the difference disappears). Or are you saying that there would be no difference between them once we controlled for the type of work? Because your cite includes a paragraph about this topic and it does not say that:
I think what could’ve happened is that this paragraph is badly written and you might be misinterpreting what it says. The numbers it cites are the benefits. I’m not sure why it tries to include the methodology of getting these numbers (“difference between the average compensation and the average wage”), because it makes it more confusing.
The reason I would expect it to be different is because it is different. The mere fact that the federal income tax is less than half of federal revenues tells me that your 19% is irrelevant.
Social security and medicare rates have gone from 2% when the program started the the approximately 15% today.
I think we all agree taht taxxation distorts economic behaviour but if your objective is to BALANCE THE BUDGET then you can’t do that without tax increases. If you are concerned with economic growth then you have to start talking about whether it makes more sense to extend the tax cuts (and accrue the deficits that go with that) or spend the money on something else.
Anytime the government reduces the deficit, it drags demand. If we are now talking about the economy, we have to ask whether the economy is better off with an extension of the Bush tax cuts or with additional spending or perhaps with DIFFERENT tax cuts. Perhaps replace the Bush tax cuts with AMT reform and elimination of the marriage penalty (and those idiotic phase outs).
I’m saying that your numbers become meaningless when you realize (a) that the 41K includes benefits for people who are already retired and (b) that you would not see such a difference if you compared the benefits of federal workers to a comparable work force in the private sector, its like comparing the average wage of lawyers compared to the average wage in the general population and concluding that lawyers are overpaid.
Here are the charts for federal health insurance premiums. It lays out how much the government contributes. The most that the fed contributes is about 10K/year.
I don’t know about scientists and phds but lawyers (and their secretaries and the guys in their mail rooms) get higher health care benefits.
There are other benefits like a 20% pension and a 401K match that I don’t think are common in the private sector but if you compared comparable jobs, I don’t think you would think federal employees are overpaid.
This statement is an incorrect simplification. You are saying that the BEA is wrong in including the best estimate of pension costs in the total compensation. They say that these cost should be included and I can only imagine disagreeing if you want to hide the true costs of the federal workforce.
I agree that the difference would be lower, but I doubt it would become insignificant.
Let’s not go overboard and imagine that all federal workers are the cream of the crop from their classes, who are all doing jobs like being judges (where in the private sector they could earn much more). Less than half have Bachelor’s degrees.
As I wrote previously, we need to remember to include job security, the number of days worked per year, schedule flexibility, etc. if we want to get a better comparison with the private sector. These will all look much better for the federal workers.
The health insurance is only one part of their benefits. Also, it is available to all continuously employed federal employees but only 65% of all workers in the U.S. had their insurance through their work.
I hope things are better on the home front … you should definitely be feeling better now that we know more about Obama’s so-called “freeze”.
One thing I would really like to understand better from you or any other gov’t employee is what is meant when it is said that you may have traded less pay for security.
All I can figure is that it is either …
keeping your job when others in the private sector might be losing theirs… for various reasons (performance, economic, etc.)
or better retirement and other benefits so that your long-term security is better protected
I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that this is true, but is it? Job security, certainly, but vacation and schedule flexibility I’m not so sure.
I’ll bet if you look at the numbers, you’d find that workers below the median federal compensation level are getting a better deal with the feds (i.e., administrative assistants), but workers above the median federal compensation level are getting a worse deal (i.e., lawyers, diplomats, finance people).
Yup, and then they’ll get mad and vote Republican to get back at him.
Indeed we saw this with a lot of 99ers who got mad at Obama for “failing to support them” and who talked about voting GOP this last November.
I mean, seriously. The end results of the latter are already unfolding into a modern parable. You know, the one about the lambs voting for the wolves to replace the incompetent shepherd…
After 20+ years in federal employ, I readily admit I have better time off and schedule flexibility than any of my privately employed age/economic compatriots I can think of.
While I am not overly sympathetic to the people in the worst straits, I do believe that to some extent a society can be judged by the lifeline it extends to its least advantaged members.
It seems the Repubs tend to fell that if they ignore the poor, disadvantaged and [ yes [ stupid, they will cease to exist. Or somehow just start yanking on those old bootstraps. I’m not so sure about that.
Do they even care if the poor cease to exist or not? The Republicans only care about setting them adrift. The poor and disadvantaged are dead weight to them.
“Moreover, federal compensation estimates include sizable payments for unfunded liabilities that distort comparisons with private-sector compensation.”
“Unfunded liabilities result from earned benefits for all retirees and current employees who had earned benefits before the fund was established. Unfunded liabilities also result from any changes to benefits that result from new statutes, such as extensions of retirement benefits or pay raises.”
I’m not saying that the federal employees would be making only slightly more than their private sector counterparts, I’m saying they make LESS than their private sector counterparts. If you compare the average government worker with the average private sector worker, you are going to get a very skewed view. If you compare the average government lawyers with a comparable private sector lawyer, the private sector lawyer makes significantly more almost every time.
I don’t know what the statistics are but my impression is that if you exclude the military, the TSA folks who check provide airport security I would bet the average federal employee is significantly more educated than the average private sector employee.
I totally agree that federal employees enjoy significantly more job security and stuff like that. A per hour comparison would be the best measure and I believe that using a per hour comparison, the federal workers I know probably still do a lot worse than they could in the private sector, they just don’t want to work the sort of hours that private sector lawyers want to work.
Yes but if you compare apples to apples then I think the 65% probably rises significantly.
I can only speak to the lawyers. The AVERAGE lawyer includes anyone who passed a bar in some state. The average federal lawyer is significantly more qualified than that. Its like comparing FBI salaries with the average policeman’s salary. The FBI agents aren’t supermen or anything but on average they maintain a higher than average standard.
Now I think the average large law firm is probably more selective than the federal government but the federal government represents a higher standard than the general population of lawyers.
I imagine that this is true in many areas.
In any event, I hope that we can agree that the simplistic comparisons that some people have been making between the average American worker and the average federal worker grossly distorts the facts.
The lower you go on the pay scale, the better federal work becomes compared to the private sector. There are also very few of them because we have outsourced all that work. I don’t know where the median is but if its near the average, then the median federal worker is around GS 12, which is a lot closer to being a professional than a secretary.
It is more likely that they will simply stay at home. I don’t think this pay freeze would do it but if the Democrats as the party in power let federal employees become scapegoats, they will wonder why they support Democrats if they are so willing to throw them under the bus.
How about we agree to focus on and help those “least advantaged members” of society then?
It seems like the Dems, while by definition helping those folks, are intent on buying votes by pushing the cut-off line up as high on the scale as they can.
No government employee affected by this so-called pay freeze is among the “least advantaged”.
This is true. And the higher you go on the pay scale, the less actual work is required. People in the private sector who make GS-12+ type money are routinely working long hours. There aren’t a lot of lawyers who punch in and out for nothing but 40 hours a week; a government lawyer does (or at least does if he’s not ambitious). My wife is a government employee whose private-sector peers make significantly more … but also put in 50-60 hours a week. She gets comp time for every minute over 40 hours.
I’m not going to strongly contest any of this. I acknowledge that the Dems have not done a very good job of attacking what I consider the biggest, toughest issues, and the vast majority of what they advance is far more symbolic than substantive. I’m not sure what issues the Repubs are especially interested in achieving these days. Not intended as a slam, just that I think their promises/platform are at least as empty and disingenuous as the Dems.
I read a quote from Cher over the weekend in Vanity Fair that I agree with. I’ll paraphrase that she said she made great money and didn’t object to paying more taxes, but she wasn’t interested in giving the government more to simply piss away.
Just a datapoint. The federal offices I am most familiar with have been hiring lawyers recently. Anyone in the legal field knows how rough the past couple of years have been for private firm attys. (Given the job market, it is tough to imagine why 95% of law students would be going to law school.) But our agency was hiring attys from top-tier schools - Harvard, U of C, Northwestern - the type of candidates who would not have even considred gov’t work 5 years ago. And they are competing with any number of young attys who have just been shitcanned by the top big private firms. *(The majority of them snotty little punks who act as tho their shit don’t stink, BTW. But others who appreciate a job that permits some quality of family life, and doesn’t require billing or BS like all-nighters at a client’s or partner’s whim…) Entry salaries probably around 2/3 what I see reported for big firms. Actualy, probably close to 1/2, but I don’t keep close tabs on this sort of thing.
My old office hired castoffs from any number of big firms. Will be interesting to see if they stick with the gov’t should the hiring economy for lawyers ever heat up again.
Of course they care, in fact, they care so much that they want the people to bear some personal responsibility and “grow up” so that they aren’t a drain on society anymore.
All I have advocated in this thread is that personal responsibility should have some bearing on whether or not a person or people are worth helping.
Lost a job, need some help, GREAT!!! Let me help you.
Never had a job and had 13 kids since then, maybe you need to rethink your life philosophy. Yes, there is a big excluded middle in there but you’ve got to start with personal responsibility at some point.