Screw Globalization, Join Uncle Sam

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 6/25/2007 12:15:00 AM
Dear readers, rest assured that I do not read USA Today on a regular basis, but this feature caught my eye. Its basic thesis is this: globalization has forced down salaries in the private sector, therefore you're better off joining the federal sector where salaries are less affected by the forces of globalization AND the pay is better on the average. Obviously, it's welcome news for this political science major. By the way, for a counterblast to the typical abuse hurled at public sector work like what the Heritage Foundation regurgitates below, read Charles Goodsell's The Case for Bureaucracy: A Public Administration Polemic. That's its title, I'm not kidding. It's an eye-opening book that makes you question the neoliberal conventional wisdom that has made prejudice against government workers an acceptable form of discrimination. Anyway, to the article:
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 [oh, that big, bad, unaccountable and bloated bureaucracy!]

"The government doesn't have to worry about going bankrupt, and there isn't much competition," Sherk said...

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 [ditto].

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..."

"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."