Taypayer Handouts and Ripoffs

Salary Database of America's Overpaid Federal Employees

HubPages.com (Stacie Naczelnik) - Ever wondered where all of your tax money goes?

In a society where salaries are secrets nobody wants to reveal, it is refreshing to find websites that have a tell all approach when it comes to the salaries of federal employees.

If you are interested in finding out just how well (or not) a government job pays, all you have to do is get online and click away.

For a broad view:
2010 Salary Tables and Related Information
For general salary ranges of particular job descriptions, check out this U.S. Office of Personnel Management website.

For an in-depth look:
Federal Employees 2008 search
Find federal salaries based on location, agency, or even name at this site. Jobs that relate to national security are excluded, but other positions are available.

Why does it matter?

There are a variety of reasons why you should be able to find out how much federal employees are making.

First of all, it is important to know how tax money is used. This doesn't mean that you, personally as a taxpayer, are paying these salaries. But as a taxpayer, you should find out how taxes are used.

Second, it helps to see the salary differences between the private companies and government jobs. When I first saw some of the federal salaries, I was shocked--I was certain that the private sector paid more. I was wrong.

Heritage Foundation: Cut Feds’ Pay by $47 Billion

July 7, 2010

FederalTimes.com -The Heritage Foundation today released a report on federal compensation which calls for drastic cuts in most federal salaries. Heritage concluded that when benefits are factored in, federal employees earn 30 percent to 40 percent more on average than their private-sector counterparts. Bringing federal salaries in line with market rates would save $47 billion in 2011 alone, Heritage said in its report, “Inflated Federal Pay: How Americans Are Overtaxed to Overpay the Civil Service.”

Heritage also calls for abolishing the General Schedule, with its longevity-based raises, and establishing a pay-for-performance system with broad pay bands, cutting leave and other generous federal benefits, hiring more contractors, and making it easier for managers to fire underperforming workers.

But Heritage said Congress should not implement across-the-board cuts for all federal employees. Highly skilled federal workers such as lawyers and engineers are underpaid when compared to the private sector, the report said.

The report is sure to throw more fuel on the fire of this ongoing debate, which the Republican Party is eager to revisit in an election year that is becoming a referendum on the size and role of the government.

Feds to Hire 600,000 Employees by 2012

GovCentral - 600,000 over three years. 273,000 deemed mission-critical. That’s how many people the Partnership for Public Service projects the federal government will need to hire by 2012 to fill growing needs as well as replacing a baby-boomer workforce set to retire. These numbers and other hiring projections are listed just in time for some Labor Day reading in the third edition of the Where the Jobs Are report issued on Thursday.

That big number of 600,000 is the total hiring during the four years of Obama’s current term for all types of federal government positions. This is equivalent to nearly one-third of the current federal workforce.

“It’s important to note that while there has been considerable growth in mission-critical jobs, the government is not growing significantly larger in historical terms. By the end of 2012, with all new hires, our nation’s workforce will still be smaller than it was in 1967,” said Stier.

This semi-annual report (the last one was in 2007) provides top-line hiring projections and insight on why the hiring needs will exist. Data was compiled from survey responses by 35 federal agencies, representing 99 percent of the federal workforce. The report was funded with support from Aon Consulting and Monster Government Solutions. (Full Disclosure: Monster Government Solutions & GovCentral are operated by Monster Worldwide)

Three factors that the report deems the primary larger driver of the projected hiring increase: national security, veterans support, and retirements.

One-third of the 1.9 million member civilian federal workforce is expected to retire or resign in the next five years. The Partnership expects over 240,000 federal employees to retire between 2008 and 2012. This means thousands of government job opportunities nationwide.

Maintaining its mission of securing the country, the Department of Homeland Security is projecting 65,730 openings, up 37 percent from the previous report.

The Department of Veterans Affairs, citing an increase in administering benefits, is looking to fill 48,159 jobs.

Despite Layoffs, Fed Work Force is Growing

From 1981 through 2008, the civilian work force remained at about 1.1 million to 1.2 million, with a low of 1.07 million in 1986 and a high of more than 1.2 million in 1993 and in 2008. In 2009, the number jumped to 1.28 million. Including both the civilian and defense sectors, the federal government will employ 2.15 million people in 2010 and 2.11 million in 2011, excluding Postal Service workers... The decline in 2011 is mostly due to temporary Census workers hitting the skids. - Nick Gillespie, Announcing The Largest Federal Workforce. Ever., Reason Magazine, February 3, 2010

We estimate that the federal government (including the postal service) spends about $193 billion each year on salaries and benefits. - Jeff Krehely, An Inexpensive Way to Make the Federal Workforce Fairer and More Competitive, Center for American Progress, June 22, 2010

Studies estimate that during President Obama's full term, new hiring for all types of federal government positions will reach nearly 600,000 employees -- almost one-third of the current workforce -- with a 41 percent increase in mission-critical hiring compared to previous years. - AOL Jobs Contributor, Why You Should Consider a Job With the Federal Government, April 22, 2010

Originally Published on February 6, 2009

The Associated Press - Companies are cutting jobs by the tens of thousands. State and local governments are penny-pinching, too. So what about Uncle Sam? Tough times for him as well?

Not exactly.

In fact the number of federal workers is on the rise.

That might seem strange to the 11 million people in the U.S. who are out of work — and the millions more who fear they soon will be. Shouldn’t Washington pare down, too?

But it is unlikely that President Barack Obama will put any of the nearly 2 million federal civil servants out in the street in the middle of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. His proposed $800-plus billion economic aid plan, which includes heavy spending on public works, is expected to increase the ranks of federal workers, although mostly at the state and local level.

That measure is working its way through Congress just as Microsoft Corp., Pfizer, Caterpillar, Home Depot and scores of other companies are shedding workers, and governors are asking or ordering state workers to accept furloughs, salary reductions, truncated workweeks or reduced benefits.

“Federal belt-tightening would worsen the problem right now,” said Kevin Hassett, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. “Most economists agree that the federal government is a built-in stabilizer,” said Hassett, a former adviser to GOP presidential campaigns.

Simply letting federal workers go is “penny-wise and pound foolish,” said Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group that works to revitalize the government and its work force.

“We had a situation where we had a single person monitoring toys coming in from abroad. End result: You get lead-tainted toys coming in to the country,” Stier said. “We need people looking out for the public good.”

Paul Light, professor of public service at New York University, also thinks more, not fewer, federal workers are needed on the front lines. He said other steps could be taken to trim costs. The Obama administration has suggested reducing the number of managers at the middle levels, he said.

“That would be a good thing,” Light said. “What he hasn’t suggested is that we reduce political appointees at the senior level. I just think you could do some things to say to the public, ‘Look, the federal government is going to make its share of sacrifice and it’s more than just having energy-efficient buildings.’”

The government’s civilian work force peaked in the late 1960s at about 2.3 million. It was 2 million or more through the mid-1990s, when the government cut more than 400,000 jobs — many through military base closings. Since 2001, civilian employment in the executive branch, excluding postal employees, has edged upward from 1.7 million to about 2 million, largely because of new homeland security jobs.

More federal job openings are on the horizon.

A report released in January by Christina Romer, head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and Jared Bernstein, an economic policy adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, predicted that more than 90 percent of the 3 million to 4 million jobs that Obama proposes to save or create would be in the private sector.

But the report also estimated that 244,000 government jobs — some at the federal level, but more at the state and local level — would be created or saved.

That was based on a $600 billion stimulus package; the one being debated in Congress is more than $800 billion.

Moreover, many baby boomers who are getting government paychecks are at retirement age. The Office of Personnel Management estimates that 58 percent of supervisory and 42 percent of non-supervisory workers who were on the federal payroll as of October 2004 will be eligible to retire by the end of next year. The financial meltdown, however, has prompted some to delay retirement.

Cynthia Bascetta, 56, director of health care at the Government Accountability Office, has 31 years of federal service under her belt. She said she thought retiring in these troubled economic times was too risky. So she will wait at least a year to retire, even though she recently moved to Fredericksburg, Va., and now has to commute by train to her job in Washington.

“I know of a few people who feel as though they need to stay because they have children they need to put through college, and they’ve lost a lot in college funds,” she said. “Others are just anxious about their financial situation.”

Other older workers are seeking federal jobs, which come with job security, health and life insurance, a federal retirement program, paid vacations and leave and other benefits.

When the national job market began tightening in the first quarter of last year, FedJobs.com, a business that has been helping federal job hunters since 1974, started hearing from 50- to 65-year-olds instead of 25- to 40-year-olds.

“All of a sudden, it’s a much older clientele calling up saying they’re interested in government work because they lost their jobs, their companies merged, their companies went bankrupt and they’re looking for stability,” said Ross Harris, sales and marketing director for the site. “The perception is that federal work is more stable — that there aren’t as many layoffs.”

Rising unemployment and excitement about working for Obama combined to motivate about 350,000 people to apply for 3,000 to 4,000 political appointee positions in his new administration. Jumping to the federal payroll, however, doesn’t necessarily mean moving to the nation’s capital; more than 80 percent of federal civil workers are employed outside the Washington metro area.

“Workers in the private sector are being laid off at an alarming rate,” said Richard Brown, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, one of the three largest unions representing federal civilian employees. “That is making the federal sector, where employment levels have been mostly stable, more attractive. Obama is calling American workers to public service and has said he wants to ‘make government cool again.’”

Federal employment has not completely escaped the impact of the economic downturn. While no government-wide hiring freeze has gone into effect, some departments and agencies are taking belt-tightening moves.

Obama, for example, froze the pay of some White House employees.

“During this period of economic emergency, families are tightening their belts, and so should Washington,” Obama said.

But it was a symbolic move. The pay freeze only affects roughly 100 White House employees earning more than $100,000 a year.