The Privileged Class

[Scooter]

I have one word for those who believe government workers add no value to the societies in which they live: Somalia. Strange that no one would prefer to live in a society that has no government waste because no government exists to waste anything.

[quaddriver]

Interesting point.

But this is not the case in the public sector. The addition of a public sector employee is nothing more than an additional expense to the agency, and in no sense can it be honestly said that she adds value to the government instrumentality that hires her.

And since compensation in the public sector cannot (generally) be tied to any tangible economic value (e.g., what is the value of a firefighter playing ping pong in the firehouse, waiting for an alarm?), it can only be fairly determined with reference to compensation for similar work and qualifications in the private sector.

This can be certainly problematic because much of government work simply has no private counterpart. Border guard? Policeman? Teacher? But there is no alternative to trying to establish a "market value" with reference to the private sector - everyone in Government is "overhead."
.

Horsehockey?

The tasks in the public sector need to be done. by whom? If not public sector employees, contractors? free by the goodness in your heart? If you think the tasks need not be done by the govt, fine, but that is NOT the same as the tasks need not be done.

paragraph 1 that I quoted is in error.

any employee in the US has an employer match of the ss/medicare funds. Those accounts ARE deposited into.

the cost of benefits and salary for any public sector employee is part of that agencys budget and is tracked by the 'human capital officer'.

the real moneymaker (for the holder) and cost (for the taxpayer) is the prime contractor. for each head the prime brings in, far less than 50% of the billed charges actually reach the person. you wanna cut waste, cut govt contracting.

now about these vaporware benefits. looking at my W2 I find that my employer paid within cents of $400/mo for my health insurance. I paid $463. I have the federal standard option which most feds do and was used as the basis for Obama care, both in the benefits model and the imputed income model. that seems to me I pay a little better than 55% of my health care. This is a direct flip flop of the private sector (I paid appx 18% for cigna ppo at visa).

pension? sure, I get a pension plan. no one is going to argue that FERS is a shining model of a fat pension plan. 401? sure I have a 401 with a small match, just like about everyone else. a 1:1 match on 3 or 4% IIRc. it pales to the 4:1 on 6% match I had at visa.

vacation? 4 hours shy of 20 days per year + federal holidays. I had 20 days + 4 floaters + 10 holidays after 10 years at IBM. 21 days plus fed holidays at VISA. where are the fat cat vacation plans?

job for life? eh, while it is not an at will firing to get rid of a career level fed, unless you want to languish at a pay grade and step level forever, you had best score a bunch of 5's on your reviews. to come in off the street and not start at the bottom, you need at the very least a 4 year degree IN the field, not basket weaving, and to come in at a higher level you most likely need further education including a PHD and verifiable work experience. not to mention if you need a clearance you have to be squeaky clean for financials, taxes and criminal checks back to day 1.

now are you still going to try and tell me that a career level fed has zero value add to the task than some HS dropout scanning dog food at walmart? In my 24 years since college I have never had 100% college graduate density among my peers. where else can that be said?

[dgs49]

I have NOT said that government workers have no value. Clearly this is not the case.

What I have said is that it is generally impossible to set a government worker's compensation in the same way that a private, for-profit entity does. Because there is no ECONOMIC value to an added government employee (although there are specific situations where a task can have economic value, generally in the area of contracting).

The work must be done and someone must do it, but the paradigm for ascertaining the value of the work is fundamentally different. So it is done by comparison with the private sector, where a person's qualifications and the economic value of the work are determinative.

QD, I don't disagree with anything you say (although you speak in generalities that are not broad-baed for Federal employees). I worked for the Feds for 5 years and experienced pretty much what you have. And I had the same "bug up my ass" about benefits, because the General Public assumes that Federal Employees benefits which are at least comparable to the best benefits granted to State workers under collective bargaining contracts.

Take a breath. We are arguing about two different things.