Bureaucracy Salary/Job Growth Dramatically Larger than Private Sector

For most of this country, this recession been a tough one. Chances are If you haven't lost a job you know someone who has.  The real unemployment number (including people who are no longer getting unemployment dollars or have given up looking) is over 17%. Many many who have kept their jobs, have lost income either through pay cuts or unpaid furloughs.

There is one group of people who have had nothing but good news.  People working for the federal government have seen their salaries skyrocket. Not surprisingly, the number of people working for the federal bureaucracy has grown as President Obama's strategy of more government control over the economy continues to push out the private sector.

• Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession's first 18 months — and that's before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.

• Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time — in pay and hiring — during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector.

• The highest-paid federal employees are doing best of all on salary increases. Defense Department civilian employees earning $150,000 or more increased from 1,868 in December 2007 to 10,100 in June 2009, the most recent figure available.

• When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.
  

Look I am not one to deny anyone a raise or a decent salary, and what that is depends on the marketplace. But it certainly seems a bit disingenuous that the progressives in Congress have taken a stance against big salaries in the private sector when the federal government is expanding it payroll faster than the r.est of the country

The trend to six-figure salaries is occurring throughout the federal government, in agencies big and small, high-tech and low-tech. The primary cause: substantial pay raises and new salary rules.

"There's no way to justify this to the American people. It's ridiculous," says Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, a first-term lawmaker who is on the House's federal workforce subcommittee.

Jessica Klement, government affairs director for the Federal Managers Association, says the federal workforce is highly paid because the government employs skilled people such as scientists, physicians and lawyers. She says federal employees make 26% less than private workers for comparable jobs.

There have always been that disparity, the benefits of working for the federal bureaucracy are job security and great heath benefits, vacation etc.

USA TODAY analyzed the Office of Personnel Management's database that tracks salaries of more than 2 million federal workers. Excluded from OPM's data: the White House, Congress, the Postal Service, intelligence agencies and uniformed military personnel.

The growth in six-figure salaries has pushed the average federal worker's pay to $71,206, compared with $40,331 in the private sector.

Key reasons for the boom in six-figure salaries:

• Pay hikes. Then-president Bush recommended — and Congress approved — across-the-board raises of 3% in January 2008 and 3.9% in January 2009. President Obama has recommended 2% pay raises in January 2010, the smallest since 1975. Most federal workers also get longevity pay hikes — called steps — that average 1.5% per year.
  

• New pay system. Congress created a new National Security Pay Scale for the Defense Department to reward merit, in addition to the across-the-board increases. The merit raises, which started in January 2008, were larger than expected and rewarded high-ranking employees. In October, Congress voted to end the new pay scale by 2012.
  

• Paycaps eased. Many top civil servants are prohibited from making more than an agency's leader. But if Congress lifts the boss' salary, others get raises, too. When the Federal Aviation Administration chief's salary rose, nearly 1,700 employees' had their salaries lifted above $170,000, too.

On a personal note, I am entering my 16th month of unemployment which may effect my position, but it seems to me that much of the country have been suffering during this long recession. With the lone exception of our Heroes in the military and intelligence, government hiring and raises should be no more than flat.  Anything else would reflect a "let them eat cake" attitude toward the public and, when you consider that Congress is about to raise the debt ceiling by $1.8 trillion, it would reflect an abdication of their fiduciary responsibilities.