OPM: Pay gap widens; feds fall further behind private sector The pay advantage enjoyed by private-sector workers over federal employees grew to 24 percent in 2010, two percentage points higher than in 2009, according to data the Office of Personnel Management released Friday. The pay gap data, culled from information gathered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, undercuts the conservative argument... [more]
OPM: Pay gap widens; feds fall further behind private sector
The pay advantage enjoyed by private-sector workers over federal employees grew to 24 percent in 2010, two percentage points higher than in 2009, according to data the Office of Personnel Management released Friday.
The pay gap data, culled from information gathered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, undercuts the conservative argument that federal workers are significantly overpaid, the National Treasury Employees Union said in a Nov. 1 release.
"There is a great deal of misinformation being advanced, largely for partisan political purposes, that federal employees are overpaid," NTEU President Colleen Kelley said. "In fact, the opposite is true."
But Chris Edwards, the Cato Institute's director of tax policy studies, questioned OPM's figure. With the poor economy — which has put millions of people out of work and stifled the salaries of many more private-sector workers — it's ridiculous to claim federal employees are falling further behind, he said.
"To come up with results showing an increase doesn't make sense," Edwards said. "It conflicts with the broader patterns. Clearly, private wages have stagnated, but we know federal workers continue to get raises."
Edwards said the results show the government's process for determining the pay gap is flawed.
"We need an outside auditor like PricewaterhouseCoopers to come in and audit the whole pay gap methodology," Edwards said. "There's been no public, detailed study on exactly how they get these results."
http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20101101/BENEFITS01/11010302/
Actually Mr. Edwards, there is no need to hire PriceWaterHouseCoopers to audit federal employee pay. The Congressional Budget Office already did this 8 years ago, and found the exact same thing. But don't let that spoil your [Tea] party!
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=3992&type=0[less]
Response by The_President
over 15 years ago
Posts: 2412
Member since: Jun 2009
Monday, August 16, 2010
Washington, DC - Today, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management released the following statement from Director John Berry:
Recent press stories regarding pay for Federal employees compared to private sector workers are unfair and untrue. Simply put, these stories have compared apples to oranges. Federal workers are not paid double the private sector. The Cato Institute and USA Todaystories quoting Cato staff (and similar statements from the Heritage Foundation) look only at gross averages, including retail and restaurant service workers and other entry-level positions that reduce private sector average pay in comparison to the Federal average, which does not include many of these categories in its workforce.
The Federal workforce today is highly specialized. Thirty years ago, over 22% of our workforce was in blue collar jobs. Now that percentage has dropped by half while the percentage of IT and Health professionals has doubled. Data clearly show that many of these highly specialized workers - doctors, nurses, cybersecurity professionals - are paid less than their private sector counterparts and are making a significant sacrifice in pay to serve their neighbors.
"The number of federal workers earning $150,000 or more a year has soared tenfold in the past five years."
nice try parasite :)
Ignored comment.
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Response by LICComment
over 15 years ago
Posts: 3610
Member since: Dec 2007
More wrong facts from Pres. Interesting . . .
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Response by The_President
over 15 years ago
Posts: 2412
Member since: Jun 2009
"Federal workers earning double their private counterparts"
Next time you want to repeat a lie, it helps to check Poitifact first to make sure it has not been disproven:
Rep. John Boehner says federal workers make twice as much as their private sector counterparts
So we looked at some federal statistics ourselves, using Bureau of Labor data for mean annual salaries from May 2009. Those statistics list a $43,460 mean yearly salary for the nation’s 130.6 million private sector workers, and a $71,500 mean salary for its 1.9 million federal employees.
That’s about 35 percent short of double.
Just as the BEA data does, the labor data’s private sector average also incorporates hundreds of jobs for which there’s no federal counterpart. So we looked at some specific examples -- the doctors, nurses and cybersecurity professionals that Berry mentioned.
Federally-employed doctors make about the same ($173,400 a year) as their private sector counterparts ($173,860). Federal registered nurses actually make more: $77,830, compared with $66,530. BLS didn’t have a "cybersecurity professionals" category. We found federal "computer specialists" made $88,920, compared to $78,010 for their private-sector counterparts.
So where does that leave us?
Using the BEA data, the average federal worker salary is considerably short of the "twice as much" level Boehner claimed.
Using the Bureau of Labor’s data, the gap is a little wider, but the average federal worker pay still is considerably short of double.
That’s why we rate Boehner’s claim False.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Washington, DC - Today, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management released the following statement from Director John Berry:
Recent press stories regarding pay for Federal employees compared to private sector workers are unfair and untrue. Simply put, these stories have compared apples to oranges. Federal workers are not paid double the private sector. The Cato Institute and USA Todaystories quoting Cato staff (and similar statements from the Heritage Foundation) look only at gross averages, including retail and restaurant service workers and other entry-level positions that reduce private sector average pay in comparison to the Federal average, which does not include many of these categories in its workforce.
The Federal workforce today is highly specialized. Thirty years ago, over 22% of our workforce was in blue collar jobs. Now that percentage has dropped by half while the percentage of IT and Health professionals has doubled. Data clearly show that many of these highly specialized workers - doctors, nurses, cybersecurity professionals - are paid less than their private sector counterparts and are making a significant sacrifice in pay to serve their neighbors.
http://www.opm.gov/opm_federalemployeepay/
This is an outrage ... private-sector pay must be reduced IMMEDIATELY!
Race to the bottom.
Are you talking about in the US or Palestine?
www.alanhart.net
funny how the only stats show federal workers make less, come from federal news sources..
why did the gov't deny PWC's advance for a pay audit.. hiding something??
Federal workers earning double their private counterparts
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/income/2010-08-10-1Afedpay10_ST_N.htm
More federal workers' pay tops $150,000
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-11-10-1Afedpay10_ST_N.htm
"The number of federal workers earning $150,000 or more a year has soared tenfold in the past five years."
nice try parasite :)
More wrong facts from Pres. Interesting . . .
"Federal workers earning double their private counterparts"
Next time you want to repeat a lie, it helps to check Poitifact first to make sure it has not been disproven:
Rep. John Boehner says federal workers make twice as much as their private sector counterparts
So we looked at some federal statistics ourselves, using Bureau of Labor data for mean annual salaries from May 2009. Those statistics list a $43,460 mean yearly salary for the nation’s 130.6 million private sector workers, and a $71,500 mean salary for its 1.9 million federal employees.
That’s about 35 percent short of double.
Just as the BEA data does, the labor data’s private sector average also incorporates hundreds of jobs for which there’s no federal counterpart. So we looked at some specific examples -- the doctors, nurses and cybersecurity professionals that Berry mentioned.
Federally-employed doctors make about the same ($173,400 a year) as their private sector counterparts ($173,860). Federal registered nurses actually make more: $77,830, compared with $66,530. BLS didn’t have a "cybersecurity professionals" category. We found federal "computer specialists" made $88,920, compared to $78,010 for their private-sector counterparts.
So where does that leave us?
Using the BEA data, the average federal worker salary is considerably short of the "twice as much" level Boehner claimed.
Using the Bureau of Labor’s data, the gap is a little wider, but the average federal worker pay still is considerably short of double.
That’s why we rate Boehner’s claim False.
http://politifact.com/ohio/statements/2010/nov/18/john-boehner/john-boehner-says-federal-workers-make-twice-much-/