5 ms·

Most of the people who are making 100-200k would make at the very least double that if they were in the private sector. A GS-15 is equivalent to a Brigadier Gen

by phaus 13y ago

Most of the people who are making 100-200k would make at the very least double that if they were in the private sector. A GS-15 is equivalent to a Brigadier General(Who would be in charge of thousands of people). Now, keep in mind that some technology positions have inflated GS ranks because it was the only way they could get the salaries high enough to attract talent. Security analysts and programmers don't come cheap. Working for the government can be great, depending on who you work for and whether or not it fits your personality, but don't be deluded into thinking that the majority of government employees have cushy, high paying jobs. Note: Politicians and Senior Executive Service employees are a different story, many of them are overpaid and ineffective at their jobs.

Jtsummers 13y ago
Paywise they're peers to Colonels and Brigadier Generals, position scope tends towards being equivalent to Colonel (AF, can't speak to other services or departments), with SES employees being the civil service peers to General officers.
- phaus 13y ago
  You're right, I was a rank off. That being said, a Colonel is often still in charge of a couple thousand people.
  - Jtsummers 13y ago
    Absolutely, and the comparisons get kind of hairy sometimes. GS-12+ aren't all supervisory, it's possible to have GS-14 and 15s that are mostly specialists with few or no individuals in their direct charge. For those curious, the general mapping of GS grades to officer ranks: GS-15 = O-6 (Colonel/Navy Captain) GS-14 = O-5 (Lt Colonel/Commander) GS-13 = O-4 (Major) GS-12 = O-3 (Captain, this is the journeyman level for engineesr) GS-9/11 = O-1/2 (Lt's, apprentice stage) GS doesn't start at 9, though. The lower grades are typically limited scope, no supervisory responsibility, office jobs (secretaries, mail room, clerk, data entry, etc.). Or they're training positions, straight out of college an engineer may be a GS-5/7 and after 2-4 years a GS-11/12. They don't really have a clean comparison to military ranks, that I know of.
    - mpyne 13y ago
      > They don't really have a clean comparison to military ranks, that I know of. They do, but you have to start going into the enlisted ranks for best comparisons. GS-7 might be E-6/E-7, GS-5 would be E-4/E-5, etc.
      - phaus 13y ago
        If you look at pay, a GS-7 makes less than I did as an E-4 in the DC/Baltimore area. If you look at responsibility, it seems to fit.
      - Jtsummers 13y ago
        It gets fuzzy. Enlisted responsibility is not strictly below officer responsibility, it's just different and somewhat overlapping once you get to higher NCO ranks. A high ranked NCO could be on par with a GS-12 in terms of responsibility scope, though perhaps not in pay. I'd agree that low GS grades (say 5-9) are probably akin to E1-E4, but starting at E5 or so (AF) you start gaining responsibilities (either personnel or materiel) that are more akin, not in kind but in scope, to lower ranked officers.
  - mikegreen 13y ago
    I disagree. I worked with plenty of AF Col's in the 5-sided-puzzle-palace that managed offices with 15-30 folks. They worked alongside a GS-13 to GS-15 types.
    - Jtsummers 13y ago
      This is where it starts breaking down though, as rank increases (GS or other) responsibility increases. This is often most clearly seen with the number of people you're charged with, but less clearly is when it's the work itself. Either as a specialist or leading a group of specialists, or managing particularly big projects (so you don't directly manage thousands, but the scope of the project may place you indirectly in charge of them).
    - phaus 13y ago
      What happens in D.C. isn't really representative of the rest of the military. A normal Colonel will be a Brigade Commander, in charge of at least 3 battalions, which each contain hundreds of people.
      - mpyne 13y ago
        Well it simply depends on the scenario of the given agency/unit. In the Navy an O-6 may very well have a "Major" command that still doesn't involve more than 180 people and an individual ship. Likewise just as D.C. has peculiar effects on the military rank of typical workers, so does it have peculiar effects on the civilian grade of workers, due to the position classification principle of "scope of effect".
        phaus 13y ago
        I'm less familiar with the Navy than I am with the Army and the Marines, but wouldn't the captain of a ship with a crew of 180 warrant a sizable paycheck in the private sector? I began by talking about the number of personnel they would be responsible for, but someone else described the situation a bit better than I. AS they said, it really comes down to the level of responsibility. The government probably determined that being the captain of a ship worth tens of millions of dollars is probably roughly equivalent to leading a brigade of infantrymen.
Shivetya 13y ago
also include in your exception list, political appointees. I haven't scanned the whole list so I am wondering if the members of the Whitehouse staff, Congress, and similar, are available? The Whitehouse has nearly 500 listed on their site. The sheer number of government employees is amazing especially when you consider you have to add on top of these numbers those at state, city, and local, levels.
dj_axl 13y ago
> Most of the people who are making 100-200k would make at the very least double that if they were in the private sector. The base salary would double. However they'd be left without a pension, and other benefits though I think the pension is easily the largest monetary value.
- phaus 13y ago
  Pension's great, but you don't come close to making up the difference between that and receiving twice as much of a salary.
- rayiner 13y ago
  OPM estimates that FERS pension and retiree health benefits add 18% to overall pay. Let's use as an example someone with 20 years of federal service and a highest 3 years salary of $150k. The FERS benefit is roughly 1.1% * 20 * 150k = $33k/year. That's a 25-year annuity of $450k. To accumulate $450k over 20 years, that's about $12k per year, or 8% of income. People who serve longer will get a bigger pension, but the nature of the $100k+ positions in the federal government is that they require advanced degrees, extensive work experience in the private sector, etc, which limits the overall length of service. If you're an educated professional (say an antitrust economist at the DOJ), you'll make a lot less money in federal service even accounting for benefits. On the other hand, if you're a document clerk, you'll make a lot more.
chernevik 13y ago
The government has significantly _lower_ turnover than the private sector, which isn't what microeconomics says we would see if the workers could make that much more by leaving. It's more consistent with the suggestion that the workers would make considerably less if they left. So: 1. Microeconomics is seriously, perhaps completely, wrong; or, 2. Federal employees are much more motivated by non-financial rewards, such as the satisfaction of public service, than the rest of us, and are, therefore, better people than the rest of us; or, 3. They couldn't make more in the private sector, and would probably make less. Take your pick.
- stonemetal 13y ago
  Do those salary numbers include the benefits like retirement? Public jobs are one of the few pension gigs left. Also their health insurance is pretty good.
  - adestefan 13y ago
    The health insurance is actually pretty bad and really expensive. The pension isn't that cushy either. They changed the pension system in the mid-80s, but people still spout off the false notion that you're somehow set on a government pension.
    - RougeFemme 13y ago
      My understanding is that the health insurance is still better than what is typically available for private sector employees. The pension system is not nearly as good as it used to be, true, but it does exist, which is not true for most private sector employees. I've worked both sides of the fence, so I'm not flinging arrows.
      - adestefan 13y ago
        Same here. The 4 different insurance products I've used in the private sector are much better than I ever had access to as a government employee.

by phaus 13y ago

Jtsummers 13y ago

Paywise they're peers to Colonels and Brigadier Generals, position scope tends towards being equivalent to Colonel (AF, can't speak to other services or departments), with SES employees being the civil service peers to General officers.

phaus 13y ago
You're right, I was a rank off. That being said, a Colonel is often still in charge of a couple thousand people.
- Jtsummers 13y ago
  Absolutely, and the comparisons get kind of hairy sometimes. GS-12+ aren't all supervisory, it's possible to have GS-14 and 15s that are mostly specialists with few or no individuals in their direct charge. For those curious, the general mapping of GS grades to officer ranks: GS-15 = O-6 (Colonel/Navy Captain) GS-14 = O-5 (Lt Colonel/Commander) GS-13 = O-4 (Major) GS-12 = O-3 (Captain, this is the journeyman level for engineesr) GS-9/11 = O-1/2 (Lt's, apprentice stage) GS doesn't start at 9, though. The lower grades are typically limited scope, no supervisory responsibility, office jobs (secretaries, mail room, clerk, data entry, etc.). Or they're training positions, straight out of college an engineer may be a GS-5/7 and after 2-4 years a GS-11/12. They don't really have a clean comparison to military ranks, that I know of.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    > They don't really have a clean comparison to military ranks, that I know of. They do, but you have to start going into the enlisted ranks for best comparisons. GS-7 might be E-6/E-7, GS-5 would be E-4/E-5, etc.
    - phaus 13y ago
      If you look at pay, a GS-7 makes less than I did as an E-4 in the DC/Baltimore area. If you look at responsibility, it seems to fit.
    - Jtsummers 13y ago
      It gets fuzzy. Enlisted responsibility is not strictly below officer responsibility, it's just different and somewhat overlapping once you get to higher NCO ranks. A high ranked NCO could be on par with a GS-12 in terms of responsibility scope, though perhaps not in pay. I'd agree that low GS grades (say 5-9) are probably akin to E1-E4, but starting at E5 or so (AF) you start gaining responsibilities (either personnel or materiel) that are more akin, not in kind but in scope, to lower ranked officers.
- mikegreen 13y ago
  I disagree. I worked with plenty of AF Col's in the 5-sided-puzzle-palace that managed offices with 15-30 folks. They worked alongside a GS-13 to GS-15 types.
  - Jtsummers 13y ago
    This is where it starts breaking down though, as rank increases (GS or other) responsibility increases. This is often most clearly seen with the number of people you're charged with, but less clearly is when it's the work itself. Either as a specialist or leading a group of specialists, or managing particularly big projects (so you don't directly manage thousands, but the scope of the project may place you indirectly in charge of them).
  - phaus 13y ago
    What happens in D.C. isn't really representative of the rest of the military. A normal Colonel will be a Brigade Commander, in charge of at least 3 battalions, which each contain hundreds of people.
    - mpyne 13y ago
      Well it simply depends on the scenario of the given agency/unit. In the Navy an O-6 may very well have a "Major" command that still doesn't involve more than 180 people and an individual ship. Likewise just as D.C. has peculiar effects on the military rank of typical workers, so does it have peculiar effects on the civilian grade of workers, due to the position classification principle of "scope of effect".
      - phaus 13y ago
        I'm less familiar with the Navy than I am with the Army and the Marines, but wouldn't the captain of a ship with a crew of 180 warrant a sizable paycheck in the private sector? I began by talking about the number of personnel they would be responsible for, but someone else described the situation a bit better than I. AS they said, it really comes down to the level of responsibility. The government probably determined that being the captain of a ship worth tens of millions of dollars is probably roughly equivalent to leading a brigade of infantrymen.

Shivetya 13y ago

also include in your exception list, political appointees. I haven't scanned the whole list so I am wondering if the members of the Whitehouse staff, Congress, and similar, are available? The Whitehouse has nearly 500 listed on their site. The sheer number of government employees is amazing especially when you consider you have to add on top of these numbers those at state, city, and local, levels.

dj_axl 13y ago

> Most of the people who are making 100-200k would make at the very least double that if they were in the private sector. The base salary would double. However they'd be left without a pension, and other benefits though I think the pension is easily the largest monetary value.

phaus 13y ago
Pension's great, but you don't come close to making up the difference between that and receiving twice as much of a salary.
rayiner 13y ago
OPM estimates that FERS pension and retiree health benefits add 18% to overall pay. Let's use as an example someone with 20 years of federal service and a highest 3 years salary of $150k. The FERS benefit is roughly 1.1% * 20 * 150k = $33k/year. That's a 25-year annuity of $450k. To accumulate $450k over 20 years, that's about $12k per year, or 8% of income. People who serve longer will get a bigger pension, but the nature of the $100k+ positions in the federal government is that they require advanced degrees, extensive work experience in the private sector, etc, which limits the overall length of service. If you're an educated professional (say an antitrust economist at the DOJ), you'll make a lot less money in federal service even accounting for benefits. On the other hand, if you're a document clerk, you'll make a lot more.

chernevik 13y ago

The government has significantly _lower_ turnover than the private sector, which isn't what microeconomics says we would see if the workers could make that much more by leaving. It's more consistent with the suggestion that the workers would make considerably less if they left. So: 1. Microeconomics is seriously, perhaps completely, wrong; or, 2. Federal employees are much more motivated by non-financial rewards, such as the satisfaction of public service, than the rest of us, and are, therefore, better people than the rest of us; or, 3. They couldn't make more in the private sector, and would probably make less. Take your pick.

stonemetal 13y ago
Do those salary numbers include the benefits like retirement? Public jobs are one of the few pension gigs left. Also their health insurance is pretty good.
- adestefan 13y ago
  The health insurance is actually pretty bad and really expensive. The pension isn't that cushy either. They changed the pension system in the mid-80s, but people still spout off the false notion that you're somehow set on a government pension.
  - RougeFemme 13y ago
    My understanding is that the health insurance is still better than what is typically available for private sector employees. The pension system is not nearly as good as it used to be, true, but it does exist, which is not true for most private sector employees. I've worked both sides of the fence, so I'm not flinging arrows.
    - adestefan 13y ago
      Same here. The 4 different insurance products I've used in the private sector are much better than I ever had access to as a government employee.