The Truth Will Set You Free: Soooeee! Let’s fire half of them and cut the other’s pay 50% to level the playing field!

By John Sykes

Over at the Cato Institute, Ted DeHaven points out:

The Bureau of Economic Analysis has released its annual data on compensation levels by industry. The data show that the pay advantage enjoyed by federal civilian workers over private-sector workers continues to expand. This state of affairs is a thumb in the eye of the private sector, which continues to struggle with high unemployment. Many private sector employees have been forced to take pay and benefit cuts while continuing to fund generous federal employee compensation with their taxes.

One eye popping graph illustrates that Federal civilian employees are now making over two times those in private industry.:

Another graph shows that a private industry worker is 300% more likely to be laid off or fired than a federal government employee. Talk about job security! Some argue this is due to a higher federal employee educational level. Nonsense! Any chance this has to do with their unionization and the pandering of elitist politicians?

And a third graph screams that a private sector employee is 8 times more likely to quit, evidencing a federal employee’s recognition of how great he has it.

From Federal Employees at the Trough, :

Currently, the U.S. Office of Personal Management estimates that there are just over 4.2 million federal employees. Thus, based on the average salary figures reported by USA Today, total wages paid to all federal employees now total nearly $300 billion per year, or about $1,000 for every man, women, and child in the United States. Add to this figure the costs of insurance, paid time off, and retirement benefits (which have not even been quantified here), and the total federal outlay to "pay" federal employees soars by billions more.

Simply stated, this trend cannot be sustained.

Nor should it be continued. So let’s fire the half of them that aren’t needed and cut the other half’s total compensation in half. Given that federal employee costs are at least equivalent to their wages,that should about level the playing field and save some $450,000,000 or more!

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