The Glade 4.0

So the question at that point is, what is the median age at which an employee enters the private sector vs. the public sector?

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I was 33 when I got tired of Private Sector companies folding out from under me and went to work for the State.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

But why go Federal?

Better pay, more security, better benefits?

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Holy shitsnacks!

Better security and benefits, not better pay, are what most people I know in gov't jobs point to.

Benefits that eclipse any difference in pay.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Security and benefits were high on my list, and mentioned to me by my father-in-law (to-be at the time) when he suggested I go for a State Job when the insurance company I was working for moved to Texas. He is and was then a long standing member of the Republican party.

In many ways, the best move I've made.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

He's speculating in that it is not a given that there is no data to support the idea that the average government worker in a given field are magically older and/or more experienced than the average private-sector counterpart. All that is given is a government employee saying as much.

Take all physicians.
Split them into "government employee" and "not government employee."
Do you believe the average age and/or overall experience level of the former is greater than the latter?

Repeat for any given field.


What is more likely, to my mind, is that the government bureaucrat meant to indicate that government pay is higher because of longevity, not age or experience. This would then be highly reflected in the pay, as several people here have mentioned.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Actually, pay eclipses pay. Then we factor in benefits. Never mind fringe bennys.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Those numbers are very suspect.

I worked as a federal employee for 15 years as a chemist. My position was rated a GS-9/11, meaning that at full performance with maximum seniority even the most expensive location is well below the "average pay" listed in the article. Given that job ratings, job duties and pay are fairly well standardized across federal service, my experience (and pay level) were probably average for chemists in federal employ. I worked with a number of Ph.D. chemists with 20+ years of experience who were mostly rated GS-13 (research chemist) which barely averages that "average pay" number.

In addition, the average "value of health, pension and other benefits" number is, based on my experience, seriously inflated.

I know that I could have made more money working in private industry based on actual job offers I received. I'm certain this is true of other people I worked with that went to private industry jobs.

I suspect that the problem lies, as the article alludes, with the fact that administrators are classified as chemists (or scientists of some kind). The Boss of the group I worked for (approx 40 people) was a "supervisory chemist". To be sure, earlier in his career he had been a chemist, but at that point he was purely administrative. His boss (in charge of approx 400 people) was a "supervisory chemist" and the people he reported to were all "supervisory scientists" and they reported to a political appointee. The only way I can figure the BLS or USA Today came up with those average numbers is if they included all those administrative personnel as "chemists".

I've made no claims, other than there is too much difference in the evidence presented in the article to validate the conclusion people seem to have made of it. Not enough "hard data points". The fact still stands that there wasn't a comparison within similar demographics - you absolutely must isolate the differences to ONLY be "government v. private sector" to substantiate the conclusion.

Working for the federal government provides some great benefits, but so does working for the larger companies like Boeing, IBM, etc. In my experience, the top performers in the field I'm in get the best jobs in private sector consulting companies. Still, that's anecdotal evidence and really doesn't matter for the sake of this discussion.

My point that "you have to compare apples to apples" was the extent of the argument I presented.If information provided in the article needs to be excluded, then this entire conversation is irrelevant.

Also, using information in the article isn't speculation on my part... it might be on the part of the person making the claim, but my use of that information is as legitimate as anyone using ANY information in the article.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Except that it doesn't.

No. Someone unrelated to the study and with motivations to defending the higher pay for federal workers postulated the bolded in your list. The report did not address those specific factors, nor does it appear it even attempted to reconcile the differences. Her comment has as much weight, based upon what was reported in the article, as the person who claimed that private sector jobs do 26% less work than federal.

"THEY", being "USA Today", both presented the study and published the article which included the information I quoted... so, yes, they did identify the criteria to the reader.

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In time, this too shall pass.

And "They", as in USA Today, based that information from data obtained from the BLS. The quotes that you are seizing upon as evidence to support your tenuous claims are from other departments, not the originator of the data (the BLS), nor the people analyzing the data.

The only data presented in the article is that in cases where the same profession/title exists for both federal and private positions, the federal positions pay more for the listed occupations. There is no mention of cause for the difference as part of the analysis, nor is any presented, except via a quote from an interviewed individual that was likely cornered or volunteered by her department to answer the question from the author of the linked article.

There is no more validity to her claim than to the claim that private practice does 26% less work for the same position. At least as presented in that article. If you have something worthwhile to contribute that supports those claims, I'd love to see it.

But until then, the did not:

[/quote]
SO, you want to include information "from other departments" but not from a specific spokesperson from a particular department...

I consider the information they communicated as having equal weight.

Why would someone start depreciating one source for the article and not the others?

Perhaps if you go review my posts and share what you consider to be my claims we may have a basis for further discussion. There may have been others scattered about my posts as tangents, but the main source of my contention with this article is that there isn't a commonality necessary for comparison.

Someone can no more compare the government as an employer to the "average" company as they could compare IBM to the "average" company, when it comes to specifics like pay.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Why?

For what reason would you put one person's word on equal footing with aggregate statistical analysis?

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Because I'm taking the all the facts presented in the article from one organizations "word" on it. They presented it as a legitimate counterpoint to their point. Shouldn't I?

The alternative is for me to cherry pick the information they presented... and that's not honest in the least.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Except that statistical studies, generally speaking (dependent largely upon the methodology) are wholly more valid than anecdotal evidence.

Let's use an analogy:

Statistical studies indicate that Vioxx is causing dramatically increased risk of heart attack.

Company spokesperson says that is just because people on Vioxx are already sick.


You're saying you'd give equal weight to both of those facts, effectively.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

If that's all the information that's presented, I would discard them equally, yes.

What you consider anecdotal evidence is actually information communicated by a spokesperson at U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

If I were pressed, I'd consider the U.S. Office of Personnel Management a better source of information concerning jobs and pay than a USA TODAY analysis of federal data.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Communicated without citation of source.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Might be different here.

Government jobs tend to start on a higher wage over all however have less room to move on the higher up scale as most people tend to stay there til they retire. Also getting a government job makes it harder to move into the private sector if government is the only experience you have.

If you want a career with room to move go private. If you want stable pay and lots of benifits go government. This is also why government tends to attract more females.

Because USA can't compare column A to column B? Your logic wholly escapes me.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

It's easy to point fingers at other people and say "they don't deserve their money." Isn't that one of the sins of the current regime? If this was the other way around wouldn't people be saying "well good for capitalism?

I don't really have a dog in this fight but if we are going to demonize or not demonize people for making too much money, let's at least be consistant here.

Or maybe we should just threaten to tax 90% of their income too.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Of course it does- you've already indicated that you believe it to be anecdotal instead of authoritative.

Perhaps if you checked out the site you might feel differently about their relevance in this matter...

http://www.opm.gov/

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In time, this too shall pass.