Should government workers take a 35% pay cut?

[porter]

Why are the majority of taxpayers forced to pay higher wages to goverment workers? Wouldn't correcting this pay discrepancy go a long way to fixing federal, state, and local government fiscal Problems?

According to the most recent Employer Costs for Employee Compensation survey from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of December 2009, state and local government employees earned total compensation of $39.60 an hour, compared to $27.42 an hour for private industry workers-a difference of over 44 percent. This includes 35 percent higher wages and nearly 69 percent greater benefits.

http://reason.org/news/show/public-sector-private-sector-salary

[jerrick]

The government should be free to set wages high enough to attract the best workers. Just like private industry.

[hawiovi]

And when we all work for the government, I do not know how they will fund it.

[wethrby]

sounds reasonable to me....many of us in the private sector have endured pay and benefit cuts, why should the public sector be exempt?

[ruelle]

They should take a bigger cut then that.

The incentives and benefits should be removed from public offices so people won't make a damn career choice out of living off the tax payer..

[vipponah]

They should take a bigger cut then that.

The incentives and benefits should be removed from public offices so people won't make a damn career choice out of living off the tax payer..

PROBLEM: People already complain about the service they receive from Federal and State agencies -- do you think they'll be any more motivated to provide good (or at least decent) service if their pay is cut by 35%? Let me answer that for you: I ride the bus to work with several Federal employees and they complain long and loud about the fact that they haven't received a cost of living increase since 2009 but their health care premiums have allegedly gone up by 80% or more in the same time period. Give government workers a 35% pay cut and you'll be lucky to get ANY service out of them other than a middle finger extended to you...

[anglesey34]

Yeah, you're right comrade, the best way to make everything fair is always for the envious, disadvantaged and deprived to drag everyone else down to their level.

[philibert63]

Your own source rebuts your argument, with a list of why the first figures are not comparable.

Including that some jobs weren't compared and that state workers had more education and more experience on the job than private sector.
In the government section you'd find even the governor and upper levels are still state employees, while in private sector workers, management isn't included.

That skews the entire premise. There are thousands of minimum wage jobs, and the top jobs aren't included in private sector figures.

[akule76]

Which workers? I think you are starting to compare apples to oranges.

Do you plan to cut teachers salaries? They already make sh!t.

State and Local government employee's most likely have a bachelors degree, does your study take that into account?

You know what a Federal government engineer makes? between 62k to 82k depending on years of experience. Do you know what a private industry engineer makes? between 80k to 200k depending on experience.

Every one of these "studies" tries to compare burger flippers to mayors, and use that data to state that majors are over paid. Its ridiculous.

@ justagrandma: I agreed with you on something for once. YAY!

[eilis]

More like 50% pay cut and they can give that money to somewhere where it's needed.