Obama proposes pay freeze for federal workers

roguenuke said:

Government workers are generally unionized. I know that shipyard workers, at the Navy SYs are all in a union and they are government workers (not talking about contractors). It is quite possible that the unions will get upset with this.

I am all for it. Now they need to work a little faster and harder on getting a lot more things done like this to change how much the government spends, inefficient spending, and wasteful spending.

Click to expand...

Keeping in mind that as a government employee...I'm not opposed to it...can you tell me why you think it is a good idea and something you are 'all for'? Without going into details...I am a pretty well compensated GS employee and can afford the inflation freeze...but many of the people in the GS world are GS-5's, 7's, and work pretty damn hard. Why is it a good idea for them to shoulder the burden of congress and their irresponsible spending? Why does a secretary, a line mechanic, a plumber, or an electrician deserve this any more than say...you.

Im really NOT being rude or insulting...I promise. Just curious...

I'm a federal worker and I have no issue with this. Like Vance though, I think its worthless and frankly idiotic if they do this yet don't actually put forward a budget that actually reduces SPENDING. I will HAPPILY take a sacrifice as a federal employee and take a pay freeze if it means that money is going to pay down the deficite or is going back into tax payers pockets due to less government spending enabling tax breaks. However, if its just being syphoned off so that we can continue to push health care or shove cap and trade down peoples throats or buy automakers then suddenly my desire to "sarcifice" is a lot less. I'm not willing to "sacrifice" simply to let the people in Washington continue their bad habits.

VanceMack said:

Keeping in mind that as a government employee...I'm not opposed to it...can you tell me why you think it is a good idea and something you are 'all for'? Without going into details...I am a pretty well compensated GS employee and can afford the inflation freeze...but many of the people in the GS world are GS-5's, 7's, and work pretty damn hard. Why is it a good idea for them to shoulder the burden of congress and their irresponsible spending? Why does a secretary, a line mechanic, a plumber, or an electrician deserve this any more than say...you.

Im really NOT being rude or insulting...I promise. Just curious...

Click to expand...

I'm not saying that they don't deserve it any more than me. In fact, I believe that it wouldn't be that bad for military members (my husband is active Navy and I am Navy reserve, our only 2 sources of income at the moment) to not be given a pay raise. I would gladly burden a little more if it meant the government would use the money to actually help pay our national debt and better itself. I was saying last year or the year before when the military got a small pay raise that people shouldn't be complaining about this.

And, I have worked with shipyard workers while on active duty who were GS-8s-11s, and they were paid a lot better than I was. Plus, many of them got overtime and bonuses, things that military doesn't get.

With this, though, I pray and hope that in doing these pay raise freezes, that they are actually going to try to fix government spending and not just use that money on something else.

roguenuke said:

I'm not saying that they don't deserve it any more than me. In fact, I believe that it wouldn't be that bad for military members (my husband is active Navy and I am Navy reserve, our only 2 sources of income at the moment) to not be given a pay raise. I would gladly burden a little more if it meant the government would use the money to actually help pay our national debt and better itself. I was saying last year or the year before when the military got a small pay raise that people shouldn't be complaining about this.

And, I have worked with shipyard workers while on active duty who were GS-8s-11s, and they were paid a lot better than I was. Plus, many of them got overtime and bonuses, things that military doesn't get.

With this, though, I pray and hope that in doing these pay raise freezes, that they are actually going to try to fix government spending and not just use that money on something else.

Click to expand...

Amen to that!!!

American said:

I wish you could show me what jobs those are.

Click to expand...

............................................................Government Private Difference
Computer, information systems manager....$122,020.....$115,705 ...$6,315
Crane, tower operator...............................$54,900.......$44,044 .....$10,856
Graphic designer ......................................$70,820.......$46,565......$24,255
Librarian ..................................................$76,110.......$63,284......$12,826
Public relations manager ............................$132,410 ....$88,241 .....$44,169

I may have the percentages wrong on these specific jobs but these salary figures do not include the value of health, pension and other benefits, which averaged $40,785 per federal employee in 2008 vs. $9,882 per private worker, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which also needs to be factored in, because we are talking about cost savings.

I hope all this tells you something of interest.

Average pay $30000 over private sector. By Dennis Cauchon ... Federal employees making salaries of $100000 or more jumped from 14% to 19%.

USATODAY.com

Click to expand...

Councilman said:

Government Private Difference
Computer, information systems manager $122,020 $115,705 $6,315
Crane, tower operator $54,900 $44,044 $10,856
Graphic designer $70,820 $46,565 $24,255
Librarian $76,110 $63,284 $12,826
Public relations manager $132,410 $88,241 $44,169

I may have the percentages wrong on these specific jobs but these salary figures do not include the value of health, pension and other benefits, which averaged $40,785 per federal employee in 2008 vs. $9,882 per private worker, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which also needs to be factored in, because we are talking about cost savings.

I hope all this tells you something of interest.

Click to expand...

Start from the bottom...the average PR employee is just another GS5-7 hack. Even a govt PR office manager isnt going to make that much...whereas a PR marketing professional...one in charge of the civilian sector office is going to make significantly more. You have to compare apples to apples, not apples to red truck.

Public Relations Director - Marketing Career Profile
PR Marketing Manager- Average salary is $104,837. It's reported that more than 50% of Public Relation Directors earn between $92,668 and $125,235.
Education/Experience Requirements: A Bachelors degree with at least 7 years of field experience.

A GS-13 Public Relations manager will likely have 20+ years in the position and at least a masters degree if not a doctorate.

Ok, so initiated a bunch of federal hires, paid them way over the going rate, then froze their pay.

And this is a solution?

For Obama to put a freeze on any spending, is a shock to the system.

The pay freeze in persepective.

apdst said:

The pay freeze in persepective.

Click to expand...

Provided they dont spend approximately the same amount in fact finding trips and vacations.

That’s not going to have much of an impact when it comes down to the deficit. Remember every single year we have a deficit which is over 1 trillion dollars.

Councilman said:

............................................................Government Private Difference
Computer, information systems manager....$122,020.....$115,705 ...$6,315
Crane, tower operator...............................$54,900.......$44,044 .....$10,856
Graphic designer ......................................$70,820.......$46,565......$24,255
Librarian ..................................................$76,110.......$63,284......$12,826
Public relations manager ............................$132,410 ....$88,241 .....$44,169

I may have the percentages wrong on these specific jobs but these salary figures do not include the value of health, pension and other benefits, which averaged $40,785 per federal employee in 2008 vs. $9,882 per private worker, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which also needs to be factored in, because we are talking about cost savings.

I hope all this tells you something of interest.

Click to expand...

This only tells amounts, but not how they calculated them or where the obtained them. You don't know anything about the populations being sampled.

American said:

This only tells amounts, but not how they calculated them or where the obtained them. You don't know anything about the populations being sampled.

Click to expand...

I suspect they're being very clever on picking a "typical" worker in that industry. "See, a secret service agent makes all this money but a mall cop makes minimum wage! RARR OVERPAID FEDS!" I mean, both might be described as a "security agent."

Deuce said:

I suspect they're being very clever on picking a "typical" worker in that industry. "See, a secret service agent makes all this money but a mall cop makes minimum wage! RARR OVERPAID FEDS!" I mean, both might be described as a "security agent."

Click to expand...

Yeah, but I bet a crane operator that works for the government is purdy much the same as a crane operator that works out in the real world.

Okay, scratch that....

**** Congress. They're asses are exempt yet the rest of the governments getting cut? And the postal workers union manages to get them exempt, with them being one of the larger work forces?

It amazes me that Republicans talk about "class warfare", and then immedietely look to punish one class of workers over another and even then both sides are playing favorites.

I don't doubt there's a large amount of Federal Employee's that would happily sacrifice a bit of their pay to help reduce the spending of government. But when you're exempting large groups of people, allowing the politicians to continue to bump THEIR money up, and then just run off and spend the money on frivilous programs rather than the debt then many of us lose that desire to "sacrifice".

Especially when you're adding potential furloughs on top of it, potentially looking at a net 7% DECREASE in the rather paltry salary comparitive to other positions and time served for the large majority of federal employees.

Councilman said:

This is nothing. Government workers make on average more than twice and in some cases 3 times what the equivalent private sector works make, plus a benefit package that out strips almost all private sector jobs.

The main thing I think is the Unions which should be outlawed will object and Obama will cave. He owes the 08 election to Unions ACORN and others.

Click to expand...

I agree to an extent. I think most public sector positions regardless of where they are. Should be paid the same amount. There needs to be a pay maximum and pension that is low.

For an example I believe that a teacher-except for universities-should be paid less than 90000 a year. That is good money. There is no need for them to earn any more. And for retirement they should not earn more than 25000. That would go a long way on fixing property taxes.