One Chart that Tells You Everything You Need to Know about State and Local Government Pay
by Dan MitchellThe showdown in Wisconsin has generated competing claims about whether state and local government bureaucrats are paid too much or paid too little compared to their private sector counterparts.
The data on total compensation clearly show a big advantage for state and local bureaucrats, largely because of lavish benefits (which is the problem that Governor Walker in Wisconsin is trying to fix). But the government unions argue that any advantage they receive disappears after the data is adjusted for factors such as education.
This is a fair point, so we need to find some objective measure that neutralizes all the possible differences. Fortunately, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has a Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, and this “JOLTS” data includes a measure of how often workers voluntarily leave job, and we can examine this data for different parts of the workforce.
Every labor economist, right or left, will agree that higher “quit rates” are much more likely in sectors that are underpaid and lower levels are much more likely in sectors where compensation is generous.
Not surprisingly, this data shows state and local bureaucrats are living on Easy Street. As the chart illustrates, private sector workers are more than three times as likely to quit their jobs.
This helps explain why the unions are treating the Wisconsin debate as if it was Custer’s Last Stand. The bureaucrats know they have comfortable sinecures and they are fighting to preserve their unfair privileges.
The only bit of semi-good news for Wisconsin taxpayers is that state and local bureaucrats are not as lavishly over-compensated as federal bureaucrats.
This Center for Freedom and Prosperity video looks at all of the data and reveals a pecking order. Federal bureaucrats are at the kings and queens of compensation. State and local bureaucrats are like the nobility. And private sector taxpayers are the serfs that worker harder and earn less, but nonetheless finance the entire racket.
The video closes with a very important point that the right pay level for many bureaucrats is zero. This is because they work for programs, departments, and agencies that should not exist.
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61 Comments
I'm tired of hearing; "If you work for the government, you've got it made"! This is due to politicians buying the government employee vote and pandering to the unions. "NO PUBLIC EMPLOYEE UNIONS".
Start with the "retired in place" folks…
BAN ALL Government Employee UNIONS.
All states must become "right to work" states.
Then, all this nonsense becomes academic.
Most employees, given the choice, do not want to be union members.
Ann
(workplace choice)
When I was a kid which was before the explosion of public sector unions, working for the government as a "civil servant" was generally considered to be a low paying albeit secure way to make a living. Since then, and not coincidentally in conjunction with the rise in the public unions, it is now "the place to be." I think the fact that more people are not rising up against this establishment of a new aristocracy is because that 47% of the public that pays no federal income tax is the greatest recipient of the services and largess of big government. If everyone were paying the same percentage of their income in taxes, you can bet your ass that the anger directed toward these shakedown artists would be much more widespread and would encompass the vast majority in the country.
NO MANDATORY UNION DUES OR MEMBERSHIP—NO GOVERNMENT UNIONS PERIOD!
Every politician has to make this one of their top priorities. If they plan on being elected! I'm sick and tired of this and so is the majority of Americans.
Unions were not a problem then. By God, they are now. Damned blood sucking leachs.
I hear this morning there is some kind of budget compromise in Congress, cuts are being reduced to around $31 billion from about $65 billion. I heard that the $65 billion cut is like a $0.02 cut on the dollar.
We are doomed. We can't stand up to the Marxists and say we're cutting $0.02 to every dollar and you just have to live with it?
I have no doubt there are offices with bureaucrats making $150K to $200K, that do absolutely nothing. Agencies that have no relevance, but were never closed because it is located in some powerful politicians district. I bet there is 1000's of such bureaucrats.
This is not about workers rights, which they were founded on. It is about continuing to steal the money of the Union members so they can bribe the Lawmakers in the Democratic party to continue the destruction of the free market system. Call a spade a spade.
Would you say veterans are treated well?
Exposure to light is an effective disinfectant.
But unless state legislatures get a handle on this mess, then economy CANNOT recover anytime soon.
Paying for useless bureaucrats, robs ALL Americans of Freedom.
You live off of our money, dirtbag. Quit leaching off the American middle class and get a real job.
by whom? Code Pink? Westboro Baptist Church? The Democratic Party?
Limbaugh, who raised $4.2 million for the Marine Corp Law Enforcement outfit via the Harry Reid smear letter?
OReilly, whose viewers just raised $700,000 for Fisher House?
The states, like TX OK MI AL, with right to work laws, haven't been hit as hard in the great recession as the others.
You are correct, forcing "workers" to join public sector unions, only increases and prolongs Democrat/union power.
I see you hit a nerve with the truth. Funny how that works. Someone lays out a solid argument with fact and truth and they get thumbed down without a comment. Ahhhh, the narative of the left. So telling it is.
For anything publicly funded, union membership must be made illegal. When you form a union, you are no longer beholden to the People and the Government which you've sworn to serve.
You are beholden to some communist punk that slashes tires, starts fights, and spits in people's faces for a living. That won't do with my fking money.
Columbia University?
Fool…Did you even watch the vid? You must be one of those useless EPA "worker drones"..
Do you believe it is fair for Unions to pay 70% less for benefits than taxpayers………..AFTER they negotiated with WI?
How about Unions paying 75% less than the private sector for their pension AFTER negotiating with WI. Is that fair?
Little news flash for you. Veterans are not unionized. Flush that theory asshat. Have a gulp of STFU.
Wondering where you've been.
Liberals fear the truth, it's the same reason Obama wants the kill switch.
Pinhead…
We're talking about useless paper pushers in unneeded departments. Like the department of redundancy department, where you "work"..
Not people who work at Walter Reed, caring for wounded Heroes..
By our government. Funny that you would avoid the most obvious choice….
Your teachers must be proud of their little communist. Please do not use the word or ever refer to logic until you learn to use it properly.
I love the way you start off by calling us illogical when he has charts, facts and data to validate EVERYTHING, then you jump into a Soros funded conspiracy theory wiithout a shred of evidence, and without a shred of logic. You all continue to demonstarte the lack of intellectual ability that has become a trademark of regressives.
Meanwhile, under YOUR watch, we can VERIFIABLY show that the standard of living has dropped, and is expected to be worse for future generations, both firsts. You ARE actively destroying the quality of life in America, dumb ass. Want to imporve it? then let America create wealth. That is done in the private sector which is no longer competitive because of YOUR regulations and YOUR taxation.
Avoided the question, eh? LOL! Wouldn't be too hard to find stories of veterans being forgotten and mistreated by the government. And this PROVES the need for a union for protection since the government is not a benign entity. As a conservative, you should know that!
Troll hunting today. Providing some well deserved (STFU's) to them. I tire of the lame effluent spewed daily from the poorly educated sloth’s. Perhaps I am becoming a bit caustic but in their narrative, it is their fault.
There really is not much they can do to stop the truth from rising. They have tried to suppress it for some time and only because we were busy with other things did they have some success. Not any more my friend we are awake, aware and on the job.
Public sector workers and bureaucrats have higher pay than private sector. Not only this, but pensions, health care are also benefits they can count on. The problem is the taxpayer pays all of this.
In the states, public workers get more than private sector, with the same benefits of pensions and health care. When public sectors join a union, that union works against the employers of those workers, namely the citizen of the state.
He posts a chart – so what? You can make a chart say anything. He started off with a conclusion, then built or found a chart to fit that conclusion. It isn't like he had an open mind, found information, and was convinced. Let's be honest.
under YOUR watch, we can VERIFIABLY show that the standard of living has dropped
What is my watch? Bush? If so, you would be right.
http://www.economicnoise.com/2011/01/04/alarm-bel...
For lack of another place to put this. Some highlights (this is a Harvard professor, FYI)
"What are the implications for the US today? The most obvious point is that imperial falls are associated with fiscal crises: sharp imbalances between revenues and expenditures, and the mounting cost of servicing a mountain of public debt.
Think of Spain in the 17th century: already by 1543 nearly two-thirds of ordinary revenue was going on interest on the juros, the loans by which the Habsburg monarchy financed itself.
Or think of France in the 18th century: between 1751 and 1788, the eve of Revolution, interest and amortisation payments rose from just over a quarter of tax revenue to 62 per cent."
History is telling us the collapse is coming. His speech also tells us that it can happen over night. Not necessarily gradually as people would like to believe.
It's like arguing with a dog. All they hear is "098as p9hn pu481t98 Obama asmn qpeos spps sucks"
And reply "your a racist".
Heard from a mutual friend today who has been awol. He's doing well, and may be back soon.
I guess I used a bad word. Let me try again. I am a veteran’s advocate and veteran myself. I do know something of the veteran’s plight. Would you care to discuss it in detail or just use the veterans to advance your lame progressive narrative?
Many of the comments regarding this article (and other similar articles) call for banning public sector unions. I read an article recently that called for outlawing them, and gave a very compelling rationale for exactly that. The link is:
http://rwreagan1.blogspot.com/2011/02/public-empl...
and I encourage you to read it for yourself. I intend to spread the message that public sector unions should be banned and I hope you will do the same.
It's time to end this evil abuse of WE THE TAXPAYER.
I sure hope so. I have been checking his profile and looking for his usual good commentary. He has been missed.
Public servants feel their union is powerful enough that they can walk off their jobs and into the streets to DEMAND more than those they serve. All data coming in about incomes and benefits show they are a pampered lot compared to private sector workers. Force them live in the real world with the rest of us.
"All they hear …". WELL SAID my friend. BEST Post of the Day. LMAO
Public employees NEVER quit because they can't find a job in the real world. Most have such a narrow field, that they can't do a private job, or there isn't one that exists ont he private side.
Public workers are typically granted jobs due to nepotism and unfair hiring procresses and most public supervisors will not hire someone smarter than themselves so we get a dumbing down effect in staffing.
Also, after a few years on the job and having your transmission stuck in first gear, you find yourself behind the curve in competing for private jobs. Public workers are poorly trained and not given very good equipment which makes it even harder for them to find a job on the outside.
There isn't much incentive for a public worker to leave.
Interesting stat, but probably skewed because part of teacher compensation is tenure. All else equal, you would expect teachers to leave their job less frequently. Not that I want to defend teachers unions. Not at all.
But, my real gripe is with Mr. Mitchell's tacit agreement that education is a good way to measure labor productivity, particularly when it comes to government employees.
- Only a liberal would think to measure the value of an output by the cost of the input. The rest of the world (i.e., the economically literate) tries to minimize the cost of inputs relative to output production.
- Education is a teacher's field — of course they'll have more of it. Private sector employees have a lot of on-the-job training not captured by this measurement, for example.
- Educators get summers off and are encouraged to take credits. The credits are subsidized and incentivized with higher pay scales. For the rest of us, it's an enormous sacrifice to take time off from work and pay for credits.
- There's something amusingly circular with the argument: measure the value of labor by the cost of training for that profession, and where the cost of that training is, itself, the factor you're trying to measure (teachers are taught by teachers!
In the end, the only way to measure the value of a teacher's labor is to see where a voluntary, non-violent, market clears its price. Trying to do it top down requires an impossible amount of information and you're always going to have arguments and agitation. It's why the Soviets set prices using a Sears catalog!
I agree, there once was a time when anyone except maybe Arkansas,understood that INCEST was just plain wrong but that is exactly what we have with the symbiotic relationship between democrats and unions.
SigFan, I think we may have traveled the same path to this point…well said. I concur!
We started this nation partly because we were sick and tired of supporting royalty and the privileged, who constituted the governments in Europe. Now we are back to the same thing, basically. But we let it happen, didn't we?
clockwise,,
the only jobs created were for government, who in turn make twice the wages and benefits of those who pay their wages, us taxpayers of which their are less and less of who in the circle jerk of life send in dues to re-elect the ones who will continue to rob me to pay them and on and o….. Besides you speak of lowering the standard of living of everyone, that's what happens in socialist/ commie land, except of course the elitists.
I hate to say it but I'm a pessimist now. Truth is Obama was the last piece of the puzzle for the communists to feel confidant about making their move for one big ole touchy feely happy world, they forget that in commie world those that were "useful idiots become useless idiots" after the takeover. Useless idiots go into the expendables column.
Good post …excellent analogy. Reminds me of the book about Bubba Clinton "Primary Colors".
You are a little off. What changed it was the explosion of GOVERNMENT by fake conservatives like Reagan and the Bushs. Let's see, Reagan created two new Federal Bureaucracies in peacetime. HW at least had the ADA and higher taxes. W created a new bureaucracy and police state and expanded entitlements to seniors AND "children" AND started two wars never designed to end, etc…
Why a same percentage of income tax? See, they really have you trained through incrementalism. Everyone should pay the same TAX. Why should one citizen pay more than another? Does that sound right? Didn't to the Founders, either, which is why it was the ONLY form of direct (which income tax is) tax provided for in the Constitution (probably knowing it would never be implemented that way.)
Don't be a pessimistic for the long run.. We are Americans, after all.
When senaible policies are in place, things will turn on a dime.
That begins with businesses getting "customers" who want to spend, not cheap money from the crooks.
If we can survive the Civil War, we can survive this Obama clown..
And to think, all along, all that was needed to stop this BS was a simple resounding unified … NO!
Government wages are lower, generally. The Big boards have tried very hard to muddy the water there. It started with Veronica de Rugy (or what tever her name is who hasn't seemed to be around much since) starting off with the cooked data comparing apples to oranges averaging in burger flipper jobs in the private sector and comparing with with government positions which don't really have those positions. Oh, and those enormous BONUSES that government bailout "private" industry pays weren't counted, either. Clever, huh?
"…burger flipper jobs in the private sector and comparing with with government positions which don't really have those positions."
Did you ever see a school "lunch lady"? She is pulling on a hairnet and pulling down 50 Gs…
It will be as difficult as herding cats, but it CAN be done.
ever been to a federal courthouse lunchroom?
I am glad that we are bringing logic to the argument. In the interest of fairness, however, you have to look at the yearly quit rates as opposed to the monthly quit rates. As a teacher, I signed a contract that prohibits me from quitting in the middle of a year. If I do quit, I lose my teaching certification, and have to switch careers, not simply schools. So that is a factor. You would need to compare the yearly quitting rate for the private sector and the public sector. Or those of non-teaching public employees to public sector employees in the same field.
I fully support getting the unions out of the public sector!
Good post. One small issue: as a teacher, I am not simply encouraged to take credits – I am required to take them. (If I do not take the required credits throughout my entire career, they will pull my teaching certificate and I will lose my job.) The credits are subsidized (depends on the school, I think my district pays about half the cost of a MA course at the state University, or all of the cost of a BA course at the community college.)
It's a giant scam. Busy teachers often find the cheapest course that they can find (some of them are even mail-away courses where you watch a video and take a test), pay the fee, and that counts as our "continuing education" credit. There are good courses an poor courses – it doesn't matter, though. All that counts is getting those credits…which is all part of the problem.
I have – looked like it was contracted out to a foreign nation.
check your facts. it was DEMS who defended the Community Reinvestment Act, and resisted all efforts to reform and regulate Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac. Give mortgages to people who can't afford them, and they default? Go figure.
How's Obama's stimulus been working? Unemployment is STILL up from what he promised it wouldn't reach.
"He started off with a conclusion, then built or found a chart to fit that conclusion."
Well, duh! Of course he had already formed his conclusion before he started making a video about it! Unlike progressives, who run their mouths without running their brains first.
"It isn't like he had an open mind, found information, and was convinced."
Conservatives go through that process before they make the video, not while; they're making it.
Progressive logic… sheesh!
We havn't survived the Civil War yet, great forecast though
"We haven't survived the Civil War yet….."
Sure we have.
When was the last time you heard the "'rebel yell" ? Been awhile for me…
"Well, are you gonna pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?" ***
*** Josy Wales to the 3 blue coats before he "dispatched" them……
I'm thinking of the other one, the one up ahead. Thanks to all the hopey changey idiots. I think this idiot Obama is doing some cocky stuff because he has no intention of leaving when he should.
History is telling us the collapse is coming. His speech also tells us that it can happen over night. Not necessarily gradually as people would like to believe. Redirect Virus
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