The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal salary data.
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.
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. [emphasis added] ...
So not only do we have massive expansion of the federal government, we have massive salaries to go along with all that hiring. According to the article, the average FedGov employee rakes in over $71K, while the average private sector employee gets less than $41K. That's ass backwards, ain't it, given that government doesn't produce a dime of wealth; they're a cost center, not a profit center. And remember, those figures don't include the generous pensions and benefits that FedGov employees get. So not only do the FedGovvies make more in pay, they have better pensions and benefits.
Meanwhile, the official (and likely understated) broad unemployment rate is over 17% and likely headed higher.
Think of Barack Obama as the anti-Robin Hood of his time: He robs from the poor, and gives to the rich.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment