Class
The political class v. you. And that is the crux of the problem facing the country. The bureaucracy is running amok and political leaders either are incapable or unwilling to stop it and reign it in. And, suddenly, the bureaucrats and paper pushers make more than the private sector. Congress is useless and it’s a lucrative business to push around citizens and the private sector. These bureaucrats are the real power base. Period. And the political class needs to be de-privileged.
This isn’t going away anytime soon.
December 29th, 2010 at 11:59 am
True that. It is not so much the congress critters, the slimey senators, or the clueless executives, it is the bureaucrats that are the source of the problem.
Every agency is run by unelected peoples that usually have advanced degrees. Not all adavanced degrees are dicks, but it does seem to be a pretty high precetage.
We need to get rid of agencies.
December 29th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
I have never been a big fan of agencies who rule by decree rather then by the rule of law. Reminds me of chavez….
December 29th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
While I agree that there are many agencies and jobs that the government does that do not need to be done by government, and I also agree that some government workers are overcompensated, I also have to point out a couple of things:
1 The economy of this country has been converting from a skilled and educated work force into a “service based” economy. This results in lower private sector pay. WalMart and burger flipping just don’t require skilled, high pay workers.
2 In Central Florida, many trades are being replaced by illegal immigrants, who are paid much less than legal trade workers. This also has a negative effect on private compensation.
3 Many government jobs require a Bachelor’s Degree at a minimum. Degrees are required, even in local government. For example, in my area (central Florida) even cops and firemen must have a 2 year degree, and many have 4 year degrees. Contrast that with the fact that many local workers are working as carnies, janitors, souvenir shop cashiers, and burger flippers at the theme parks for low pay, and you see why there is a pay disparity.
In order to make the comparison between public and private sector compensation good for anything except bellyaching, one must adjust the numbers to correct for education and experience levels.
December 29th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
As a former .gov bloodsucker I can say with “been there done that” authority that many overpaid .gov jobs don’t require skilled, high pay workers. I got out of the .gov to actually feel accomplishment at the end of the day, so I moved, took a pay cut and go home with my head held high because I actually DO something. I also realise that about 75% of the jobs at the DOD agency I worked in are not needed, and a LOT of internet traffic originates from there.
But hey, it’s just my $.02
Oh and cops and firemen are overcompensated. There, $.04 worth of knowlege for the price of $.02
December 29th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
and you base the opinion that cops and firefighters are overpaid upon what? I made $65,000 this year. That seems high, right? Let’s look at that:
I worked 3,164 hours this year. That works out to 60.8 hours a week, or $17.55 an hour. I have been here for 15 years, and I have been promoted twice. Starting pay for private sector medics in this area is about $15 an hour, plus shift differentials. I think the two are comparable.
I guess it is easier to complain when you don’t have any facts to base your opinion on.
December 29th, 2010 at 2:09 pm
One difference is medics, police, firefighters actually, you know, provide a service that people want and are willing to pay for. A paper pusher at USDA making $150K per year provides no value.
December 29th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Divemedic: You are not a cop or a firefighter. You are a medic. If, as you say, we should compare apples to apples then you should compare apples to apples.
December 29th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
I am a firefighter/paramedic. I ride a firetruck (sometimes an ambulance) and I do both jobs. I run EMS calls, and I also run fire calls.
December 29th, 2010 at 2:22 pm
So you put on a firesuit and man a hose? Go into buildings that are actively on fire and whatnot?
December 29th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
It is common to have EMT’s on the fire department and yes, they can be smoke eaters as well. I think the pointy end of the spear is under paid. Most of the over paid are in the shaft.
I would like to give them in the shaft the shaft as well.
I am with Unc on this one. Paper hangers need to be paid less.
December 29th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
Yes. I put out fires, I go to medical calls, I use rescue tools to cut people out of their cars. I have 3 college degrees: Fire Science, Emergency Medicine, and Public Safety Administration.
In most of Florida, fire and EMS are combined. Not enough fires for it to be worthwhile to pay a bunch of guys to sit around and wait all day for a fire. For example, yesterday I went to 10 medical calls, 2 fire alarms that were false, a car accident, a brush fire, a house fire, and a bomb scare.
The point here is that we slam the anti gunners for distorting the facts, and then we do the same thing when we compare the pay of a waitress to a person with a 4 year degree. Maybe a given job doesn’t require a degree, but since we require one, we can’t begrudge the guy who went to school to get it. Instead of distorting things to complain about pay packages, why can’t we complain about the jobs that are not needed.
December 29th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
I do this a whole lot, but I forget to qualify my comment about cops and firemen being over compensated. The driving factor of my opinion is the pension system they get in most (all?) areas. They are not tethered to reality and the bullshit public service unions keep pushing them further away from reality with anti-gunner level PSH.
My question is, Divemedic, is that 65k your salary, or are you wage based?
December 29th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
Ah. See ’round here they’re seperated, but the medics like to call themselves firefighters (even though they dont actually fight fires) because it helps them get chicks. Sounds like you might want to go private if the pay is better AND you’d have fewer responsibilities.
But I’ll see your anecdote and raise you a misconception:
Couple of weeks ago a lady called in to a local talk show and asked the host to stop “lumping in all the high paid federal employees together” because it was unfair to her husband. See, her husband went and got hisself a law degree, but instead of going and making “a lot more money” as a lawyer, he went to go work for some federal law enforcement agency for $120,000/yr. So she was upset at people saying federal employees who make six figures were overpaid, because her husband was “clearly underpaid.”
Thing is, in Nashville, your average lawyer makes $53,000/yr, doesn’t get his student loans forgiven, and doesn’t get to retire with full medical and a pension.
Used to be, you went to work in the public sector knowing you’d make less than the private sector, but get great benefits later. Now (in this anecdote), we have someone who makes nearly three times the private sector rate AND gets the benefits, and they STILL think they deserve more.
Oh, and here is where you can see that as a wet-behind-the-ears law school grad you can be making up to $130,000/yr (plus locality pay) within 18 months of graduating.
December 29th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
Jerry Pournelle has been saying this for years. Why have you people not been listening?
He calls it the Iron Law of Bureaucracy.
It’s not too late, he’s beaten the brain cancer, and his site, the Original Blog, is still up at htttp://www.jerrypournelle.com
Go there, read, and learn.
December 29th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Umm, that should be http://www.jerrypournelle.com
December 29th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Nate: I am hourly. I make $19.35 an hour, but I do not get overtime until I work 53 hours in a week, unlike the rest of hourly America, who gets OT at 40 hours. Also, public employers get to do “averaging” where they do not have to pay overtime until your AVERAGE workweek over the last 13 weeks is more than 53 hours. (Full disclosure: my employer only averages over the last 6 weeks.)
We pay our own health insurance ($200 a month, plus $200 more for our family). We do get a pension, equal to 3% of our base pay for each year of service. We can retire at 25 years at 75% of our pay, or we can go earlier, with a 3% reduction for each year we go earlier. (So retiring at 20 years would get you 51% of your base.)
Wizard PC: your average of $53,000 for an attorney is wrong. The link you provided says:
“This salary was calculated using the average salary for all jobs with the term “attorney” anywhere in the job listing.”
Any ad that has the word “attorney” in it, but is for a legal secretary or paralegal position skews the results.
Furthermore, since the average is only for job openings, the pay listed will be mostly for entry level, and this will skew the average towards the low end of the scale.
December 29th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Divemedic, I don’t know if your area is different from where I am, and I also don’t know the terms of your coverage but $400/month for full family medical would be less than half what it would cost here (Phx, AZ) for even a mediocre policy. I suspect your employer is footing at least part of that benefit.
I am not sharp enough to do the math, but it strikes me that your retirement benefit (which appears to be at no direct cost to you) is a significant financial boon to you. If your retirement were to be funded by you, what would it cost you per year to sock away enough money to buy an annuity that paid you that much?
Of course, the “overpaid police & firefighters” we’re all thinking of are not making $64K a year, but rather a lot more, such as the ones in CA that have been making the news of late. Your pay – at either $17 or $19 an hour – is well under what similar levels of trained medical personnel can expect to make (I’m thinking of a Nurse Practitioner or PA)
December 29th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
No, but our insurance sucks. We have very high copays and high deductibles. They deduct 3% of our pay pretax to fund our retirement, so retirement is subsidized to some extent.
Tell you what, I would gladly give up retirement benefits to get overtime at 40 hours. At my rate of pay, that change would add $15,000 a year to my gross. At 3,100 hours a year, replacing me with private sector workers means hiring 3 private sector workers for every two public sector firefighters, because public employers are not subject to many OSHA standards or to the FLSA.
To be fair, the average firefighter medic would be closer to a Registered Nurse in education, not a PA or nurse practitioner.
December 29th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
The average wages for a college grad with a bachelors is 46,000… Interesting isn’t it…. Oddly the average wage index is 41,000 per worker…
December 29th, 2010 at 5:43 pm
More specifically, an EMT-Paramedic certification in states that follow National Registry standards requires an Associate’s degree. An RN is also an Associate’s degree.
An NP is a Master’s or Doctorate. A PA requires either a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree (moving towards Master’s across the board).
December 29th, 2010 at 6:01 pm
Divemedic, that average salary for lawyers is not far off. I’ve seen a lot of salary surveys on attorneys over the years, and that’s in line with them.
December 30th, 2010 at 6:10 am
Yeah d-med that’s EXTRAORDINARILY and UNBELIEVABLY low wages- in CA you’d make 2 or 3 times that-
why would anyone invest that much in training for such a low wage???