4 ms·
The original article is about budget problems at state and local levels, so salaries of federal employees aren't really relevant. Aside: the Heritage study giv
by aamar 16y ago
The original article is about budget problems at state and local levels, so salaries of federal employees aren't really relevant. Aside: the Heritage study gives a premium of 22% when controlling for education level; the authors have not controlled for experience level and have no way of controlling for intangible skill differences which might legitimize the discrepancy.
State and local employees make less then private sector employees (on average) when controlling for education, experience, and so on[1]. This is not to say that each and every municipality has been managing its budgets well; clearly many haven't, and outlying salaries seem to be part the problem[2] in specific situations.
[1] http://www.slge.org/vertical/Sites/%7bA260E1DF-5AEE-459D-84C4-876EFE1E4032%7d/uploads/%7b03E820E8-F0F9-472F-98E2-F0AE1166D116%7d.PDF http://www.slge.org/vertical/Sites/%7bA260E1DF-5AEE-459D-84C...
[2] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-20/california-official-s-800-000-salary-in-city-of-38-000-triggers-protests.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-20/california-official...
- aswanson 16y agoAccidental downmod. Excellent comment.
- lionhearted 16y agoGood comment. I just did a quick google for the government employee premium - I was thinking specifically about California since that's the state economy I know most about. Their spending on salaries, benefits, and pensions was crazy. Lots of good analysis about California's problems - Heritage wasn't actually the link I was looking for, I saw a different specific analysis but that one came up in Google first and was close enough to give a general idea. Edit: Also, the article mixes federal and state spending. Their examples of high spending they think are wasteful are all federal - bank bailouts, assuming private debt like General Motors, and wars are all federal spending.
- aamar 16y agoFor some reason I don't see discussion of federal spending in the Salon article or the cited NYTimes article, except for a few offhand comments in the former which seem suggestive, not substantive (e.g. rumors about what the Deficit Commission may propose 4 months from now). Why am I missing them? I agree about California; there seems to be plenty of evidence of exceedingly high salaries and pensions. Administrators might reasonably claim that they raised comp in order to hire top talent (for example at the UCs) and that they were successful in doing so. But they ratcheted up way past levels that could be sustained in a downturn, and at this point it seems short-sighted to the point of crazy.