> I know people are hurting, but when the economy recovers their pay will outstrip ours again and nobody will be there to champion a cause saying we deserve more.

THAT’S BECAUSE YOU DON’T.

Government jobs — federal, state, AND local — should pay slightly less than real world jobs for the most part — to discourage people from wanting them.

When those jobs pay well, more people want them, and that means that bureacrats have no problems finding ways and excuses for expanding their work force.
The federal civilian payroll, 1912: 400,000
The federal civilian payroll, 2005: 2,700,000

US population, 1910: 92,228,496
US population, 2005: 295,560,549

3 fold increase in population, but a 7-fold increase in government workers.

We should be discouraging government workers, not encouraging them.

Uh, YEAH, Shawn.

1) You aren’t a part of a system which increases the value placed in the economy. How is it you figure you should get a boost for that?
2) You ARE a part of a system which DECREASES the value placed in the economy — which means you decrease the wealth created for others for your own benefit — all the time. Now, try again: How is it you figure you deserve a boost for that?
3) There’s an easy way for you to get a part of those “big boosts”: Get a real friggin’ job and stop sucking at the public teat! Then you won’t suffer from this problem.

Somehow, I doubt if Shawn is going to actually do that. Poor boopsie, with his lousy federal teat-sucking job…

The best example I can give on the whole locality thing is that last year according the Bureau of Labor Statistics those of us working in the District of Columbia had the highest disparity in pay between what we make in the government and what the average commensurate worker doing the same job in the private sector made. It also addresses the standard of living for those who have to live in this area to work.

This accounted for a 4.7% increase in pay for those in this locality, the highest in the nation for the aforementioned reasons. This dubious honor of biggest income disparity was shared with San Francisco up until this year, but even they have made bigger strides to close the gap there is absolutely NO WAY they are or were contemplating a 19% increase.

In the not too distant heyday employment was up and salaries were very good in the private sector. Nobody cared about the people in the government who were not getting anything near to what those in the private sector were getting (especially in IT, which is my field.) It is only now that the excesses in the private sector have led to this economic drawback that people want to examine government pay.

I don’t want to say that gov workers should be pulling in record bonuses (because they never do, that was an occurrence in the private sector), but the talk of pay cuts is a bit over the top. Many of us took a lower paying job in the government for the stability instead of the possibility of the great prizes and dream vacation of the glitzy private sector job. Now that the game show is over and unfortunately there are many losers, you want to punish those who made the choice initially that was not as lucrative in case of a situation just like this.

This smells just like the people who laughed at me when I bought my 11 year old townhouse (for 325k if that tells you how the standard of living is here) and opted for the fixed interest rate. Many of them went with adjustable too-good-to-be-true rates and inevitably ended up killing us with this subprime mortgage/foreclosure fiasco.

So here I am with an underwater house that is worth almost 50k less than I paid for it. I made the responsible decision, just like when I chose to work for the government and I am either being punished for it or the recipient of derision by people who think I do not deserve that I get.

Please research these topics before labeling. I have been following you for a long time now and have appreciated your viewpoints on many subjects. I am not one of those who will cast things aside at the first sign of difference and will continue to be a fan.

Kindest regards,

Shawn

P.S.

One last note, in really good economic times people in the private sector are rewarded with bonuses and pay raises. This does not translate to the government. We keep on receiving the same increases we would normally get. So why in good times should we not see big increases, but in bad times we should see decreases? I know people are hurting, but when the economy recovers their pay will outstrip ours again and nobody will be there to champion a cause saying we deserve more. Just my two cents.