Saturday, May 26, 2012
The Top 2-5%?
According to USA Today, 19% of Federal employees earn more than $100,000 a year (and, no, this doesn't even include overtime and bonuses). And it's even more egregious than that at the Defense Department where there are over 10,000 employees making over $150,000 a year and the Transportation Department where there are nearly 1,700 employees making over $170,000 a year. Of course, the fact that the rest of the country was going through a recession at the very same time that these salaries (not to mention those at the state and local levels of government) were mushrooming is probably the most nauseating aspect of all. Hey, folks, maybe we should start a 95-98% movement and see if we can get these people to pay their "fair share". Huh? Yeah?
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39 comments:
How much are they currently paying?
These are current figures. Would you like me to pick up an application for you, too, Jerry? We can be a package deal.
You misundersood me. You said that we should see if we can get these people to pay their fair share. I was wondering what they are now paying? You are implying that they are not currently paying their fair share.
I don't have the tables in front of me, Jerry - whatever the rates would be for $100,000, $150,000, and $170,000. And, actually, I was implying that they were overpaid and that I resented my tax dollars going to pay their overly bloated salaries.
Now,I'm going to stick up for these folks....first,if someone paid you 175 grr a year would you tell them you're not worth that much? I dont think so.Secondly...if you've ever set foot in either a post office or a SS office you have first hand knowledge just what a crack workforce looks like.I mean these folks are assholes and elbows from start to stop.Our government workers are the cream of the crop...the best of the best.And,when say a department like the GSA wants to throw a couple crumbs to their overworked employees via a bearbones trip to Las Vegas everyone goes apeshit....I say calm down,take a pill...if things go right someday we'll all be on the government payroll.
Before you conclude that their salaries are "overly bloated", don't you think you should look at what those jobs are, and what similar jobs pay outside of government?
Or, are you saying that anyone paid over $150,000 per year has an "overly bloated salary"?
It's the golden rule: those that make the rules get the gold. And if you compare this to the soaring poverty rate, it is a truly egregious example of the Federal government's misplaced priorities.
Depending on local, those salaries may not be that much.
They really are not that high for professional jobs.
I want many government jobs, such as transportation and defense, to be competitive.
These are middle class wages. In some areas your rent / mortgage for a modest place is 60k - 80k per year or something.
Where I live, rent / mortgage is cheap, but that is still considered middle class.
10,000 employees at the Defense Department making over $150,000 a year seems a few too many to me.
There are 718,000 civilian employees in the Department of Defense. 10,000 is about 1.4% of the employees. It seems to me that 1.4% of the employees earning over $150,000 per year is not really an excessive number.
718,000 civilian employees at the Defense Department. That's supposed to make me feel better as a taxpayer (I do take your point, though, %-wise), Jerry?
Now you are getting to the real problem. Not the salaries, but the size of the overall budget.
Will said: "10,000 employees at the Defense Department making over $150,000 a year seems a few too many to me"
Do you think that if these were cut to 98k (still rich-mans', economic elite wages) the employees would stampede away... or would they stay? Is there any evidence that this excess is even needed in order to keep the employees?
Cutting the specific government handouts to the wealthy named in this example would save half a billion dollars.
I don't get why Will is so in denial regarding his conservatism. This is another example of where he takes the conservative position. The answer to people in the public sector making more than those in the private sector is to increase the wages of those in the private sector, not cut wages in the public sector.
That way everyone is paid fairly and nobody is wrongly calling a public sector employee's salary "bloated" due to their jealously.
You could pay all 718,000 civilian employees $100,000 per year (I am not suggesting you do) and it would cost about $72 billion dollars, roughly 10% of the DOD budget. The DOD budget problems are not civilian salaries.
Actually, Jerry, the salaries are a problem, too. While there may be only 1.4% (in the Defense Department) who make over $150,000,there are another 17.6% (19% - 1.4%) who make somewhere between $100,000 and $149,999. That, in my opinion, is utterly disgusting.
Yeah, wd, let's pay Walmart greeters, widget makers, and fry cooks $150,000 a year, too. Capital idea! You obviously pay precious little in taxes.
Before you call it "utterly disgusting", don't you think that you should look at what those jobs are and what comparable jobs pay in private industry?
Who is suggesting that Walmart greeters, widget makers, and fry cooks should make $150,000 per year?
Jerry Critter: Who is suggesting that Walmart greeters, widget makers, and fry cooks should make $150,000 per year?
Nobody. Will lied. He was referring to my post, but I didn't say any of those people should make 150k a year. What I was referring to is the fact that most of the people nearer to the bottom are underpaid.
It's the golden rule: those who make the rules get the gold (The CEOs and owners who overpay themselves and underpay their workers).
They're underpaid in your opinion, wd. I work with a lot of young CNAs who make $11-12 an hour and a lot of them are OVERPAID. The market sets the price of labor and if you frigging have no skills, no education, and no ambition, you're probably not going to fetch a decent wage in a free market economy. That's life. Sorry but it is.............They're bureaucrats, Jerry. And it doesn't bother you that we have over a 140,000 of these suckers in the Defense Department pulling down over $100,000 a year? Really?
What's pathetic is how you want to cut everyone's pay so those at the top can make even more. This kind of thinking is the result of a sick idolization of the wealthy. I reject it.
WD said: "The answer to people in the public sector making more than those in the private sector is to increase the wages of those in the private sector, not cut wages in the public sector."
Of course. And the only way for this to happen is for the people in the private sector to earn more money by better work. As opposed to some silly decree by government to demand that companies give unearned handouts to companies whether people earn them or not.
"The CEOs and owners who overpay themselves and underpay their workers"
You have no idea what you are talking about. The workers, including the CEOs, are typically paid the fair value of the work. The system discourages paying too much or too little.
"What's pathetic is how you want to cut everyone's pay so those at the top can make even more. This kind of thinking is the result of a sick idolization of the wealthy. I reject it."
That's complete BS. No one has argued for this here.
There are a lot of overpaid (and under worked) executives as well Will. I've known a few over the years.
dmarks: That's complete BS. No one has argued for this here.
That's complete BS. YOU argued for it when you said, "The workers, including the CEOs, are typically paid the fair value of the work. The system discourages paying too much or too little".
"fair value" is code for underpaying workers and overpaying those at the top. The "system" does NOT encourage paying too much or too little. The "system" encourages the exact opposite.
We see the proof of that with the Wall Street types who get bonuses when their firms lose money.
Clearly dmarks has no idea what he's talking about.
"They're bureaucrats, Jerry."
So, in other words Will, you don't care what they do, or what equivalent workers in the private sector get paid.
Does that mean that anyone in government getting over $100,000 per year is overpaid, or only ones in the defense department?
WD said: ""fair value" is code...
It's not code at all. And it might mean paying someone less if they do a lousy job, or paying someone more, if they do better. At any level. That is what it means. It has nothing to do with "codes". The "code" is nothing more than your over active imagination combined with poor reading comprehension skills.
And it seems like you advocate someone who is doing a shitty job being paid way more than the worth is work.
"The "system" does NOT encourage paying too much or too little."
Exactly. The 'system' (free market of labor) encourages paying for the real value of the work.
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RN said; "There are a lot of overpaid (and under worked) executives as well Will. I've known a few over the years."
Exactly. And sometimes this happens due to the pervasive climate of over-regulation and meddling in business (such as the bailouts(. Left to their own devices, business would pay these executives what they are worth. If they don't, the companies will be plowed under by the better run ones that don't waste money in this fashion. Unless the Dems give the ones that run themselves into the ground more multi-billion dollar handouts, that is.
dmarks: The 'system' (free market of labor) encourages paying for the real value of the work.
It encourages paying as little as possible. The "value" of the work has absolutely nothing to do with it. But that does not apply for those at the top. For those people the system encourages over-payment.
It's a system that robs from the poor to further enrich the already wealthy.
Also, it's the Republicans who want to give the corporations that run themselves into the ground multi-million dollar handouts. Remember that bush signed the TARP legislation and it was "administered" by Goldman Sachs alum Hank Paulson (he was the one who decided which cronies were showered with money).
I agree, w-d. Salaries are an expense. Companies try to minimize expenses. Therefore they pay as little as they can for the employees and still get acceptable performance out of them.
Jerry, most equivalent jobs in the private sector pay less than those in the government sector and I honestly don't know of a single industry in which 1 out every 5 workers makes over a 100 gs a year.
Are you just saying that or do you have some proof? What jobs at the DOD are paying over 100K, and what are the equivalent private industry salaries? How big is the difference? Or should I just believe you because you say so?
Jerry, The USA Today article said that 19% of Federal jobs are currently paying over $100,000 a year. That's my source. I'm extrapolating that the Defense Department is roughly that same %. The fact that the public sector in most instances pays better than the private sector is very common knowledge.
WD said: "It encourages paying as little as possible."
Completely untrue. You are forgetting a major thing: there are major actors in it, the "other side" in these free and fair deals, which want to be paid as much as possible. Between them the two sides work out the fair and real value.
"The value of the work has absolutely nothing to do with it."
The real value of the work has everything to do with it. This is how the value is determined, and there is no other way.
"It's a system that robs from the poor to further enrich the already wealthy."
Robs? That's crazy-talk. You are using this word without any regard to meaning.
"Also, it's the Republicans who want to give the corporations that run themselves into the ground multi-million dollar handouts."
While this may have been true at some point, for the past several years it is liberal Democrats who favor this.
"Remember that bush signed the TARP legislation"
Bush supported it. While most Republicans opposed it. And Obama supported it too, along with most Democrats. Bush, who was in lockstep with Obama on this, was in the wrong.
So, your statement that the Republicans support it is misleading and false, since most oppose it.
Average Federal employee compensation package - $117,780. Average private sector employee compensation package - $61,051.......http://aspanational.wordpress.com/2010/09/22/a-closer-look-at-the-governmentprivate-sector-compensation-gap/
That's an interesting article, Will. I've skimming through it. It shows how private industry has limited salaries and benefits for their workers, (not their executives of course), while the federal government has pretty much kept up with inflation and has not reduced benefits like private industry. Interestingly, this discrepancy between private and federal compensation grows as the power of private unions decrease. In other words, private workers have lost significant negociating power. As a result, their wages have stagnated.
And the tax payers have gotten screwed to the point where nearly 1 in 5 Federal workers is now making over 100 gs a year.
And I've addressed the stagnation issue in a subsequent thread.
Jerry said: "In other words, private workers have lost significant negotiating power"
Not really. Forced unionization takes away power from workers.
dmarks,
Simple question. Who has more negociating power, you alone or you along with your coworkers?
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