While unemployment soars across the country, More federal workers’ pay tops $150,000
The number of federal workers earning $150,000 or more a year has soared tenfold in the past five years and doubled since President Obama took office, a USA TODAY analysis finds.
TigerHawk explains why this is bad,
the most suspect of the foregoing factoids relates to widespread above-inflation increases for the longstanding employees. This reverses the structure of private sector compensation, which goes up largely (i) to perceived top-performers at risk of being snapped up by other companies, and (ii) to attract perceived top-performers from other companies. Average performers usually stay with a company or leave it for reasons largely unrelated to pay, and the longer they stick around the more you know that they are motivated by non-monetary benefits.
The soaring government pay is itself a measure of bad management. Why? Because compensation efficiency is one important measure of managerial effectiveness. An effective executive does such a good job of motivating his employees that they will tolerate a large gulf between what they are actually paid and what they might get from a competitor because the non-monetary benefits of staying put outweigh the increased monetary compensation available by switching jobs. If an executive only loses employees who are bid away with large increases, you know he or she is doing a better job of leading and managing than an executive who loses people for little or no increase.
Nobody in government seems to understand that basic point.
And we are stuck with the bills, not only for their current salaries, but also for their pensions and their permanent benefits, too.
