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US Federal Employee Salaries (2012)

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Re: US Federal Employee Salaries (2012)

#121

Post by judk »

jlgreco wrote: post #95
MaysonL wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that the government already knows, and either your employer or your accountant knows, and your bank has a pretty good idea, why do you think your income is to any meaningful extent still private?

You ever listen to a friend, who has recently hit a rough patch, talking about their difficulty paying their bills and think "gee, this would be a rather inappropriate time to mention how much money I make." ? That is where the desire for wage privacy comes from for me. Talking about how much you make, outside the workplace , has no benefits. It is just going to make the conversation awkward, or somebody is going to…

Citizens of a social democracy see this differently.

And non secret isy different from rubbing in someone's face

Re: US Federal Employee Salaries (2012)

#122

Post by walshemj »

judk wrote: post #120
walshemj wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly personal data within the meaning of the law in all the EU states. Everyone on here has a blue fit over the NSA but is fine with this!

Government is the public sector.

So I give up my human rights when I work as a civil/crown servant?

Re: US Federal Employee Salaries (2012)

#123

Post by waps »

walshemj wrote: post #122
judk wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government is the public sector.

So I give up my human rights when I work as a civil/crown servant?

Partially, yes. Like all employment, when you take a job you give up part of your rights. When you take a job as a public servant you give up more than you would if you took a private sector job. This includes some human rights. The most obvious one is the right to do whatever you damn well please all the time, but there's various others. As a public servant you, for one thing, lose the right to practice your religion during the time you work, which is not something you lose in the private sector (this is because the government, and thus it's employees, cannot be allowed to be anything but neutral in matters of religion).

Read the contract you signed when you took a job. I bet it'll be entertaining and instructive. Don't take anything I say, or indeed the contract you signed, as legal advice.

You do however, retain the right to terminate your employment (no matter what the contract says, and it must be free to do so, provided a certain period of notice is respected), and get back full enjoyment of your rights.

Re: US Federal Employee Salaries (2012)

#124

Post by chernevik »

phaus wrote: post #94
chernevik wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, suc…

The three options you listed don't even begin to describe the multitude of reasons that a person might choose to work for the government. There are people who enjoy public service, that doesn't make them better or worse than the rest of us. I served in the Army for almost a decade, it doesn't mean I'm better than anyone. The "can't make it in the private sector" argument is ridiculous. Everyone who has ever worked at…

First, these models are looking at individuals' behavior on average.

Second, if you want to be an infantryman, fly a jet, work with missiles, etc, most of the jobs are military. And there are subcultures found only in the military that some people find very appealing. The models are smart enough to consider such factors.

But the motivations and cultures of the military and civilian employment writ large are VASTLY different. Lumping the civilians in with the military and declaring it all good is way too simple. There are huge chunks of the government where the work is really no different than similar work in the private sector.

The postal service and UPS is only one example -- there are some unique functions and activities in USPS, out in rural areas, but the vast majority of it is pretty much the same as USPS. Wanna bet that postal workers are paid more than USPS workers? Or on their turnover ratios?

It isn't too hard to see the best parts of the government, they're pretty interesting and do important stuff. But those parts make a surprisingly small fraction of the total activity.

Re: US Federal Employee Salaries (2012)

#126

Post by walshemj »

judk wrote: post #125
walshemj wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I give up my human rights when I work as a civil/crown servant?

That doesn't make sense. We aren't eating government employees.

No but you are abusing my rights

UNHCR # 12 No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

As well as my rights to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"

No valid reason exists for individual salary's to be posted just as with the blackmail scam with mugshots proves.

Re: US Federal Employee Salaries (2012)

#127

Post by walshemj »

waps wrote: post #123
walshemj wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I give up my human rights when I work as a civil/crown servant?

Partially, yes. Like all employment, when you take a job you give up part of your rights. When you take a job as a public servant you give up more than you would if you took a private sector job. This includes some human rights. The most obvious one is the right to do whatever you damn well please all the time, but there's various others. As a public servant you, for one thing, lose the right to practice your religio…

Why there is no valid reason for individual salaries to be posted.

Re: US Federal Employee Salaries (2012)

#129

Post by msh345 »

georgemcbay wrote: post #65
maaku wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~1,189k are not!

Much less than that. Bethesda and Rockville are, for all practical purposes, "DC", as are Beltsville, Suitland, Arlington, VA, and a bunch of other locations that are listed in that data. Segmenting them out is like not considering MIT or Harvard as part of the college scene in Boston because they are in Cambridge, which is just being uselessly pedantic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_metropolitan_area

15% are in the DC metro area: http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-docum...

Re: US Federal Employee Salaries (2012)

#130

Post by adestefan »

RougeFemme wrote: post #115
adestefan wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.
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