Federal Employees at the Trough – American Thinker
December 16, 2009
Federal Employees at the Trough
By Paul B. Matthews
Last week, USA Today reported that nearly one in five federal government employees now earn over $100,000. The paper also reported the average federal salary rose to $71,260, almost $31,000 more than the comparative average private-sector wage.
Within the Department of Defense, over 10,000 employees (as of June 2009) now earn at least $150,000 per year, a 5½-fold increase in the number of employees eclipsing this salary threshold from just eighteen months ago.
At the same time as federal employee salaries have been soaring, total private sector earnings have steadily declined as the unemployment rate escalates (now at 10%) and the average workweek declines. In fact, in November, private-sector employees worked an average of just 33.2 hours, slightly above the all-time low set in October (33.0 hours) and well below the forty hours guaranteed to federal employees. Simultaneously, average private sector hourly earnings totaled $18.74 per hour, significantly below the implied hourly wage rates ($34.25 per hour) paid to the average federal employee.
However, simply analyzing the growth in total paid compensation fails to capture the true explosion in benefits paid to federal workers.
For example, government employees almost never work on weekends. And if a federal employee does work on Sunday, he becomes eligible for Sunday Premium Pay. Federal employees are also entitled to compensatory time off in lieu of overtime pay, a benefit few private sector firms are able to offer.
Paid time off for federal employees is also extremely generous. Employees with less than three years’ tenure earn twelve paid days off per year. For service between three and fifteen years, workers are guaranteed eighteen days off with pay. And when an employee reaches fifteen years of service, this benefit grows to twenty-four days.
Federal employees are also guaranteed ten federal holidays with pay.
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