"Coddled" Public Employees Make Less than the Private Sector

It's a truism on the right these days: firefighters, librarians, sanitation workers, and other public employees are lazy and overpaid. They've "turned themselves into a coddled class that lives better than its private sector counterpart," according to Reason Magazine. They are crushing beleaguered taxpayers with their fancy salaries and lavish benefits.

It would be an alarming story if it were true. But a new study by the Center for State and Local Government Excellence and the National Institute on Retirement Security takes a sober look at the data behind the politicized hype and uncovers a very different picture. When workforce factors such as education and work experience are taken into account, state and local employees make less than their private sector counterparts. Looking at pay alone, those supposedly "coddled" state employees earn 11 percent less than comparable private sector workers. Employees of city and county governments earn 12 percent less than their private sector counterparts.

What about those generous public sector benefits? Analyzing data from the National Compensation Survey, the researchers find that benefits such as pensions and health coverage do make up a slightly greater share of public employees' overall compensation than for private employees. Yet when the cost of benefits is factored in, state and local employees still wind up with less total compensation. People working for local government earn 7.4 percent less than employees with comparable skills could get in the private sector. State employees are compensated 6.8 percent less. So much for the lavish lifestyle.

The new research offers no clarion call for public employee raises and benefit hikes to catch up with the private sector. Indeed, the study documents how public compensation has lagged private sector for twenty years. But it does throw the resurgent right-wing campaign to demonize public employees and their unions sharply into question. In this recession, public employees have been laid off, furloughed, and seen their wages frozen. At a time when public budgets are strained by falling tax revenue, these are among the difficult choices cities and states have made. But that's no reason to imagine that "greedy" city workers somehow caused the crisis or deserve to lose their jobs or to see their pay cut any more than private sector employees. Those looking for a "coddled class" should look to the Wall Street bonus pool, not the Parks Department.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amy-traub/coddled-public-employees_b_558381.html

If they told the truth, they would be ignored or dismembered.

F*ck that sh*t. We're always the Republicans' whipping boys. I'm tired of it.

...I understood that the students of certain departments, like law, paid an extra fee at registration time that would go to increased faculty salaries for that department.

The reasoning was that professors could leave academia for the private sector and make much more money. The fee was intended to keep them at KU.

I thought, "yeah, right...leave a job in academia where you have tenure, teach only a few hours a day, enjoy academic holidays, and have the Summer off to work in a harried, fast-paced environment, where you may lose your job at any time."

But to each his own, I guess...

when my ex took a position as a professor, the faculty handbook stated that there was no way anyone could ONLY work 40 hours a week and get tenure. Once they have tenure, the responsibilities are even greater at the administrative level.

in addition to teaching they are required to serve on committees to govern their depts and to serve on committees outside of their U. in their specialization.

they are required to do ORIGINAL research in their fields.

they are required work for free, basically, to write articles for publication in journals that present the cutting edge of work in a field.

they teach students who are unprepared for their classes because people devalue education in this nation (sort of like you're doing now) and think they deserve to pass even when they do substandard work.

their families endure phone calls from students at all hours of the day or night begging for a grade... one even offered sexual favors to my husband. wish we had taped that call.

their families are expected to entertain scholars from around the world who come to their U's to do work. often these scholars are not wealthy themselves and they are HOUSED AND FED by family members of this faculty member.

the amount of time and work that goes into research cannot be overstated. this work is also supposed to result in grants, whose money chiefly goes to the research U. to pay for salaries for staff, for equipment - a small portion of grant money goes directly to a professor as salary.

My ex would graduate students who, in his field, would go on to earn DOUBLE what he made with their first position in business, without anywhere near the level of expertise.

Summers are for research and writing, not sitting around on your ass.

Like I said, you have NO CLUE about the level of pressure to perform, and for much less money than in business, by academics. oh, and the work they do, the theory that results in people like Jobs or Gates making shitloads of money?

that isn't finacially renumerated. it's part of their jobs.

Reason Mag, in this case, is full of shit.

Good info

Most people do not understand academia at all.

When I got my masters I had only been teaching 10 years and I made twice as much as a couple of my professors and more than all of them. And they had PhDs.

Never heard of this.

I know the College of Engineering does, for example, but that's for lab access, covering their "free" printing, things like that. I've never heard the "increased faculty salaries" thing as a reason for it, though. That's always sold as a reason for general fee and tuition increases.

Sure, there are various fees, but I've never heard of anyone paying a fee specifically meant to boost salaries of faculty in their department.

To encourage both talent and stability, the public sector provided security and good benefits to attract and keep good workers.

While some sluggards seeped in, the system worked well to keep good to excellent workers so they would not flee to the private sector.

This includes teachers.

All is changing with the viral "privatizing" going on everywhere. Short term gains on the balance sheet -- long term problems with major incompetence becoming embedded due to cronyism and political stagnation and instability due to the best people leaving after a short stint.

Funny those Rush fans don't mind being overpaid when Rush brings that up. Anything else he says is gospel!

These idiots sure as hell have no freaking idea what they're talking about.

NO ONE becomes a librarian for the money NO ONE. Because there is none.

I'm a librarian whose pay is dependent on the abysmally managed budget of the state of Illinois, and I can guarantee you that what I make is a f#ing joke. I am a professional with a master's degree and more than ten years of experience, but I can barely keep my head above water.

I'd happily trade paychecks with someone in the private sector with an equivalent amount of education and experience. They'd never do it, because they would make about twice what I do (if say, they had an MBA and worked for a financial company with equivalent experience).

Anyone who tries to push that BS with me will get a f#ing earful.

in order to be the librarian for that subject... so you have to have both an MLS and a PhD. The place where I was would hire someone w/o a PhD, but only if they began work on one immediately and those librarians who did not acquire one were not kept at that position.

Libraries are cutting funds EVERYWHERE. Hiring is frozen.

In my town, a college town that REALLY values education, they are cutting all librarians from elementary and middle schools. they are leaving one librarian at h.schools - these are big schools with 2500 students.

I have an MLS too. my specialization is even tighter for jobs - the place where I studied had people who had worked for DECADES as staff, rather than faculty, even tho they had their MLS and had worked for years - because that specialization is so hard to get into that people would work for less than 30k a year at a job that requires a PhD.

I'm not working in a library now. I would like to, but the jobs I interviewed for were ALL frozen. I gave up looking after the last job was setting up finalist interviews and making plans for presentations and then got the word that the position was going unfilled. So the manager is doing two jobs (this is another specialization w/i uni. libraries, so another opportunity like that one is not going to come along in the U.S. anytime soon.) I can't live in limbo, so I have to do something else with my training and my vocation.

Oh, one position I looked at but didn't apply for was a librarian in a place near Hyannisport. The salary was 25k. Can anyone with two kids find decent housing in that part of the country for 25k - before tax? I didn't bother to apply for the job. not too many other people did either, apparently, b/c the listing came back but w/o the salary noted.

I'd like to see the assholes at Reason spend their time getting a masters, working for free, basically, as a grad student, then get an offer for a job that doesn't even pay enough to rent a decent apt. for someone with a family.

fuck that article. the person is clueless.

a second master's in a subject area, yes, but PhDs aren't usually required, afaik.

That could be different, I suppose, depending on the area - in the midwest, I've never seen a job advertised asking for a PhD, almost always a master's.

if you're in reference or circ. or ugrad or cataloging... no. but to be the subj. area specialist where I got my masters - that's the req. for their libraries.

like I said, you can get hired in w/o the PhD but you are given x amt. of years to complete a PhD program in the subject (or rather "one" of the subjects.. no one is just doing one subject area, either.)

in spec. collections you are most definitely expected to have at least a masters and are supposed to have at least reading level knowledge of two langs.

archives don't req a PhD.

fewer people doing the same volume of work.
As a one-time fed, I recall working OT many times and it was not always compensated - we just had to get the job done.

The RW has to keep alive their "get rid of government waste" mantra so they can bait and switch the public. They just want to get rid of popular social programs and bet the gullible public will not notice.

:shrug:

of one of those "lazy and overpaid coddled with their fancy salaries and lavish benefits" public employees, I thank you so much for this link.

The "conventional wisdom" about government workers pisses me off no end.

odd isn't it that Wall Street has to pay those salaries to "recruit and maintain talent" but public employees are underpaid and supposedly worse at their jobs.

At least right now.

that's what this is all about. i'm in sacramento, and the anti-state worker sentiment here is very strong, with the city newspaper leading the charge.

employer and the field. For example some cities in California allow up to 90% retirement after 20 years in a public safety position. You can not get anywhere near that in Federal civil service. Rules vary considerably about double dipping too.

There are also examples that simply look bad. For example, Bernard Parks, an LA city councilman, between city retirement, city council salary, other perks, is getting ~$245K a year (IIRC) while LA is laying off many people.

South Carolina.

At the state agency where I work, 50% of the employees are part-time, no benes, including yours truly.

And as you probably would agree, we teachers don't feel coddled at all and, in fact, I feel marginalized not just in terms of salary and benefits but in terms of having my professional judgement and ideas stifled by mandate after mandate from the educrats.