All Gov't Employees Are Overpaid!
I think that all those who work for Uncle Sam are way over paid! Prof. Simmons' remarks today got me thinking about this a lot. Let's look a key issue.
Incentives:
I don't know of any gov't employee who has efficiency running through his veins. They don't do it. Why? They don't have too. There is no incentive to gain a profit, so there is no incentive to work hard and reach those unreachable goals (which is accomplished in the private sector all the time). Fear lurks under the desks and in the coffee mugs of those gov't employees. The guy in charge of helping the homeless on the street of a growing metropolis fears the idea of getting all the homeless off the street. When this is done, he will be the one who will be homeless looking for a job. When all the hungry children are feed. When crime has disappeared. When all the orphans have homes. When all the drugs are gone. Need I go on? When unemployed are now employed. When workers have their crazy demands met.
By making gov't run efficiently, people will lose their jobs and feelings will be hurt. People typically value their jobs and are working not so efficient to keep that job. Or they will just blow out of proportion reality and the severity of the problem.
posted by Spencer M. Taylor @ 7:58 PM
29 Comments:
Spencer, your statement of ALL govt employees is too ambigious. I assume that you have never had any family members or even yourself working for the government. I know of many govt. employees that if they were paid a little more they would have enough incentives to make a difference.
Spencer, many govt employees are underpaid. If you don't think so enlist in the Army as a private. If you think govt. employees have no incentive you'll see why when you're a enlisted. You'll say, thats why there are those who enlist so I don't have too. And thats exactly right. Your freedoms are secured because of those privates who are barely winning the battles because there is not enough incentives.
What the data actually show is that people are overpaid for the jobs they do. Comparable jobs in the private sector pay less. The serious question to ask is what institutional arrangement would fix the problem? ANd is it really a problem that we get less government than we pay for? Do you really want government to be efficient?
Yes, I would like the government to be effiecient. However, I realize the incentives are set up in such a way so that the gov't won't be efficient, so instead I would prefer that the private sector handle most tasks. The government can still take care of things the private sector will not, such as roads, national defense, etc., but after that just get out of the way!
An interesting dilemma occurs with those who teach. Allow me to explain. I have been raised with the idea that we should learn from those who have gone before us and have mastered that lesson we want to learn.
Example:
Who would you go to first to learn how to throw a football?
I love my dear old grandma, but I wouldn’t ask her advice when it comes to sports. I would go J. Elway.
This is why I have little tolerance for teachers wanting increases in pay. Most of them (more so in the Elementary, Middle School, and High School than college levels) have very little real world experience. They don't own businesses. They have not worked for corporate America. They know little about investing. But they got great grades in school and love the life of academia. The other option is to pay business owners more to teach than to work in the private sector. But still, the good ones wouldn’t do it due to opportunity cost (they think they can make more money in the long run in the private sector babysitting a bunch of kids).
My solution…associate with those who are already successful to learn how to succeed in business, sports, garbage collection, writing, whatever.
If we want good teachers we need to set up proper incetives. Before we set up incentives we need to decide GOALS. That is where the real issue is. We do not have clear objectives for our teachers. I think the roll of teachers should be to produce moral and intelligent citizens. Not to produce people who are able to procure wealth from the work of others. How do create incentives for teachers to produce moral citizens? By making schools accountable to the parents. Atleast the parents will be responsible for the moral which are taught. I think we need to seek ways to make indivual schools and teachers accountable to those they serve. That means parents need to have more say in the education and more say about which teachers are teaching.
Unum,
You said "Not to produce people who are able to procure wealth from the work of others."
What do you mean by that? Are you suggesting that the rich exploit their employees and take advantage of the poor and weak minded?
Companies who do this will go under in the long run. It's because of big business that we have computers, cell phones, shoes, and cocoa pebbles. These businesses provide goods and serives that we all want. If they do not treat their employees like royalty then profits, in the long run, will decrease along with production.
Don't blame your misfortune on those who are wealty.
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I would like to see the data that shows that government employees are overpaid for the work that they do, and that people in comparable jobs in the private sector are paid less. Just based off my own experience this seems incorrect. Many of the highly-trained people in the military do not reenlist as they can make much more in the private sector with their acquired skills. The difference in pay between the private sector and public sector for lawyers is enormous, with the private sector offering much higher salaries.
According to a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), federal salaries are consistently less than the salaries of comparable jobs in the private sector. The full report, including their methods of analysis, can be found at this link. Here are a few of the findings of this report.
The large firms in CBO's comparisons--including companies such as AT&T, Federal Express, and Dow Chemical--have the large, diverse operations and nationwide workforces typical of many federal agencies. Comparisons with those companies show that the compensation of private-sector executives is well above that of federal executives. That difference holds true for pay alone, pay and bonuses together, and total compensation (including benefits). For example, total compensation at the low end for one of the lowest-ranking private-sector positions in the comparisons, deputy head of law, is more than 50 percent higher than the highest amount for federal executives--$275,600 versus $176,000 (see Table 3). Readers should note, however, that companies in this category make up only a small fraction of all firms in the United States.
Compensation for federal executives also compares poorly with that of firms defined in this analysis as "medium-large," such as MasterCard International, Uniroyal Chemicals, and Bell Atlantic Mobile. Although not among the largest U.S. firms, many of those companies have complex operations and national reach similar to those of many federal agencies. Comparisons with that group show that only the compensation offered by lower-paying firms for some lower-ranking executive positions--such as head of public affairs, controller, and deputy head of law--dips to within the range of compensation for federal executives (see Table 4).
The medium-size private firms in CBO's comparison are generally regional and smaller than many federal agencies. They may be most comparable with some regional federal operations. They are also probably more typical of U.S. firms than the other companies considered, since most firms in the United States have annual revenues below $300 million. Like the other companies compared, medium-size firms also offer their executives much higher pay and benefits than the federal government does (see Table 5). Generally, only the pay and benefits for some lower-ranking positions or at the low end for firms of this size fall within the range of federal compensation.
I can't resist responding to Spencer's statement that he has little patience with teachers who want an increase in pay since they haven't gone out into the "real world" (whatever that is), and earned piles of that precious green stuff Spencer values so highly. It almost seems a truism to me that teachers are underpaid, but I won't get into arguments for higher pay for teachers. What I disagree with is Spencer's implication that teachers' most important qualification should be financial success in the business world.
The purpose of teachers is to teach us to think critically and logically, to instill in us a desire for knowledge, to encourage us to question widely-held assumptions, and to give us the tools we need to pursue careers in our chosen field. The purpose of teachers is not to turn us all into successful little capitalists.
Kilroy,
You missed my point all together. I never said that gov't employees are paid more than those with similar responsibilities/titles in the private sector. I said that they are paid too much. I know that in the private sector pay is higher. I think that all those who are employed by govt are over paid (regardless of what they could make in the private sector).
You said, "What I disagree with is Spencer's implication that teachers' most important qualification should be financial success in the business world."
Wouldn't you rather your chemistry teacher be a well-known chemist who has published many articles or even a book? Would you rather be in a class with a mathematician that worked for NASA? How about a gym teacher who has a gold medal? An English teacher who has written a few novels that are best sellers? Does this make sense? These professionals usually do not want to teach at the high school or middle school because they can make more money in the private sector. So what does that leave us? The leftovers who couldn't get the job with NASA, whose papers weren't published and won the bronze medal (which is still good but I'm making a valid point).
Teachers in the education system should teach us how to use what we have to have the lifestyle that we want to live.
Is that too much to ask?
Spencer, I was responding to Prof. Simmons when he said, "What the data actually show is that people are overpaid for the jobs they do. Comparable jobs in the private sector pay less."
I see your point, and I agree that to have successful people with that kind of experience would be nice - if they are skilled as teachers as well. But, I don't think that one's success in the "real world" automatically translates into an ability to teach, or that one's lack thereof constitutes an inherent weakness in teaching ability vis-a-vis those that have such experience.
So under spencers guidlines for healthy education we should all be at applied techknology collages. Learning a trade and not learning to think.
Businesses created computers? odd... My sources indicate the computer was developed by two proffessors working on a contract from the U. S. Army
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eniac
Maybe we should talk about where the Internet came from?
I would like you to name one example where a company that treats it's employees well has put a company that exploits it's employees out of business.
Here's an article about how higher paying businesses are being ran out of business by a lower paying business and how we all pay for it.
http://edworkforce.house.gov/democrats/releases/rel21604.html
I'm a little delayed here, but I'd like to respond to Kilroy's comment about teachers needing to be paid more...
If you want teachers to be paid more, privatize schools. At the very least set up a system of vouchers under which schools would esperience market forces. The point is that people are paid based on the amount of revenue they generate: Tiger Woods gets paid as much as he does because his talent generates billions of dollars of renevue for a lot of people. Teachers, on the other hand, do not directly generate wealth because schools are essentially a public good. If you privatized schools, each school would want to increase revenue by having better teachers. In other words, teachers would directly generate income and therefore be paid accordingly.
J. Alexander,
If you don't mind I would like to ask a question. Those who work for big brother in the Welfare department do not generate wealth, they spend it. If they desired higher wages, what would be your solution?
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I agree there is a need to identify and reward good teachers. I don't know that I agree with the voucher system. If the vouchers were enough money it would work. However we would need to increase the amount of money. A competive market creates more waste than a socialized system.
If those who worked in the welfare department desired higher wages, I would recommend they get a job in the private sector, where they must work hard and be productive.
unum,
how does a competitive market create more waste than a socialized system?
Redundancy. Each store has to create seperate training materials, advertisements, distribution channels. If all the store were working together, these costs could be streamlined. Of course the loss of comsumer choice would need to be balanced by other methods.
If all the "stores" worked together, there would be no incentive for any of them to do a better, more efficient job of providing consumers with goods. What you have suggested is a total monopoly in its purest form--which is what the government is. I doubt you will disagree when I say the government is certainly not the least-cost provider of goods/services.
I think you missed my point. The ONLY reason the private sector is more efficient than government is competition. If you take competition out of the private sector than it will be WORSE than government. The reason for this is because the only people who choose how the private system is ran is the shareholders(and then only the largest have much say). In a government controlled market atleast everyone gets one vote.
j. Alexander,
In an earlier post you stated that welfare workers should quit their jobs. May I ask if you have a job to offer to my blind friends who rely on those workers. Believe me my friends would love a job that pays better than the $550 they get now. So far every place they have applied for has turned them down(there is one place that is looking into what they can do, but they are still waiting to hear back). Please let me know and I'll have them send you their applications.
Unun,
Were you one of the Hosts at this year's communist convention in Chicago. If not, you should really check into that.
Your Blind Friend.
I'm sorry that your friend is blind. But in my mind that is no excuss for him to have our compassion in the work force. If he wants it bad enough, then he will find a way to do so. Ray Charles was blind. So is that opera singer Bocelli or what ever it is.
People in the private sector are paid, for the most part, on merit. People in Gov't are paid on the simple principles of pork. It's a crying shame.
The private sector does not even come close to touching on the amount of waist that socialism reaches.
Unum:
The sad fact is that life is hard. Everyone has his or her share of problems, unfortunately some more so than others. However, claiming a "victim" status is no way for anyone to solve their problems. Life is not a matter of what happens to you, rather it is a matter of how you react to it. Granted, there are forces outside of any one person's control that may debilitate some, but there's no use crying over spilled milk.
As far as a government-run economy goes-- it's been tried (i.e. Soviet Union, China, Cuba), it doesn't work. Let me ask you this, Unum, where do you work? Would you go to work for free?
Unum,
Two more comments:
You said the only reason a private market is more efficient is because of competition--BINGO! That is precisely the point, competition forces excellence, whereas a lack of competition discourages it.
Also, I never said that welfare workers should quit their jobs; I said that IF THEY WANT HIGHER PAY they should work elsewhere. If welfare workers enjoy their work, they should stay there. Here's another thought: if welfare workers started quitting in droves due to low pay, simple supply and demand forces would bid the wage for that job up (Ironically for your position, supply and demand are market forces).
J Alexander:
You suggest a privatization of public schools through a voucher program so that teachers can directly generate income. What a wonderful idea! Let's reward those teachers who are able to attract the wealthiest students, those who don't give out anything but A's to the rich kids for fear of offending their wealthy parents, those who spend more time and resources on recruiting and advertising than teaching. The amount of revenue they generate for the school is a great standard to judge teachers' competency by!
As to the privatization of public schools through a voucher program, I think that it is a terrible idea and here is why.
The main reason I oppose vouchers is that it would further stratify and divide society. Public schools provide a public cohesiveness, a common standard of education, a shared background, and most importantly, diversity in the classroom. The freedom of choice that vouchers give would divide American society along the lines of class, race, and religion. Rich parents will (continue to) send their children to exclusive schools where they will (continue to) associate with other privileged students. Most parents won't send their white child to a school that is predominately black, (further) segregating schools. And you know that the fundamentalists Christians will be sending their kids to a school where they will be taught that evolution is the devil's doctrine, and science is to be mistrusted.
So what is wrong about allowing parents to reinforce their own beliefs and norms in their children by allowing them to send them to schools where they will be surrounded by like-minded and like-experienced students and taught the particular brand of education that the parent favors? I hope that this question is merely rhetorical. If not, we can get into a discussion about the benefits of diversity, or the benefits of broadening one's horizons and viewpoints beyond that which has been inculcated from an early age, or the benefits of having diverse opinions in the classroom, or of having lower-ability students next to higher-ability students (as the lower-ability benefit from their help, and the higher-ability benefit from assuming the role of mentor and teacher), or the social benefits of increased understanding and tolerance and decreased fear and hostility that come from associating with peers from different backgrounds.
Another reason I oppose vouchers is that they allow schools to escape accountability to the public. Although they are partly funded by taxpayers, these schools are for-profit, and have profit at their motive. This leads these schools to streamline – to strive for efficiency. The result? Inefficient programs like those for the disabled are cut, because they don’t further the bottom line of profit (or maybe you think this is a good thing, because the market will step in and provide some school just for the disabled, where the price is high, but the chance to associate strictly with other disabled students makes it worth it!).
The last reason I oppose these vouchers is that I don’t believe they work. Read about the results of the trial voucher program in Milwaukee, and about how essentially no academic improvement was noted among those who switched from public schools to voucher-funded private schools. Many of the top private schools already in existence (44% in California) have said that they would not accept vouchers (why should they? They are already making plenty of moolah). What good is a system in which the top schools won’t even participate?
The idea that by simply privatizing schools you are making them “direct generators of income” is absurd. Schools are not factories, they are not farms, they are not businesses, and they are not venture capitalists. They, do however, produce an item of extreme importance for the economy – a well-rounded graduate who has received a MAINSTREAM education; has associated with other classes, races and religions; has gained a common background and cohesion with the rest of society; and was afforded an equal opportunity to learn that which has commonly been accepted as essential in order for a student to deserve the appellation “educated” (accepted by qualified scientists, educators, and intellectuals, not by the often self-serving, uninterested, “bad”, absent altogether, uneducated themselves, racist, elitist, or fanatic parents (a description of SOME parents, I recognize that most are ok)).
While there are many good people who will take jobs like working for the Division of Child and Family Services for less money, many can not afford to take the job because of obligations to family, etc. So many of the best people for these jobs (especially older more experienced people) will not be able to work them. If we just pay the lowest wage possible.
You ask if I work for free, in fact I do. I work as a computer admister for several organzations (a domestic violence shelter,a charity, political groups), I have also worked (for free) as a computer instructor and math tutor. I also work for free as an advocate for victims of domestic viloence and at a supply center for a non-profit organaziaon. If you would like to know about more jobs I have done for free, please ask.
I also have a job that pays. I try to spend as little time there as possible. The job is rewarding in many ways, and I do need to eat, but I prefer to the other things when I can afford to.
I have no problem with people who are motivated by greed being able to work and make as much money as their work deserves. I do believe however that our system should provide ways to help compensate for those who have been born in to worse circumstance. I believe the government should be involved in helping those form worse circumstances become productive members of our society. I believe goverment agencies can be constructed in such a way as to be efficient. I think that an important part of accomplishing goverment effiiecnicy is more local control.
Kilroy,
I have much to say regarding your lengthy response. A response to your response will be forthcoming in the form of a new post, when depends on my time commitments.
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