Federal Government Employee Compensation Report - Surprising Numbers.

originally posted by: carewemust

originally posted by: sligtlyskeptical
1.97 million employees at a cash compensation cost of $136.3 billion

Equals $69,000 per employee on average.

Doesn't include bonuses, benefits, and parties. Taxpayers cover those too you know.

Very few employees get those. The military gets housing, and so do some (but not all) diplomats. Parties are not covered by taxpayers... or weren't in the past. The Presidents of the past paid for any parties that they hosted.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: Byrd

I think the issue is the one size fits all approach the Federal government takes to wages. I have now lived in 2 communities with VA hospitals that have fairly low cost of living/wage scales. The federal employees out earn the locals considerably. While the new location i am in hasn't allowed me to witness it here, int he prior location the demand for the VA jobs gave quite a bit of leverage to the VA employees when it came to local influence.

There are some intangibles, but for the most part its not the rank and file that are overpaid. Its the folks working out of congressional offices and within bloated orgs like the IRS.

A lot of the folks working in congressional offices are interns and they are not well paid. Many work for free. As to the IRS... how many people do you think it takes to read, review, and process 200,000,000 individual tax returns (approximately) and over 50,000,000 business/corporate tax returns within a timely manner?

a reply to: Byrd

Interns work for free for a reason. Im not feeling sorry about them for that, tbh.

The IRS....you could do it with a couple hundred people. Our government just can't be bothered to spend some of that multi trillion dollar annual spend on updated systems. Given how much they spent building the ACA website, im not so sure there is enough cash on earth to really update the IRS, though.

I know folks with government jobs, and have a pretty good idea what the pay scale is. For the most part private sector outpays public, until you get to the retirement plans. Then its a completely different story.

That said....the wage scale used to pay federal employees makes federal employees rather wealthy, relatively speaking, when they work in a small town. My brother in law and his wife are both federal corrections officers in a small town. The real winners are the ones who retire from the federal prison, earn retirement, then go and work for an outsourcer like GEO or Cornell. FCI retirees make a ton of cash as wardens in private run prisons.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: Byrd

The IRS....you could do it with a couple hundred people.

I think you may not have a good idea of the workload there, even with an updated system. A single person can't process ten thousand returns per day, five days a week, twelve months a year. Look at how long it takes a tax professional to do your taxes... checking them will take about half that time, even with all the data the government has. They don't just nod and toss the thing into the "done" pile.

I know folks with government jobs, and have a pretty good idea what the pay scale is. For the most part private sector outpays public, until you get to the retirement plans. Then its a completely different story.

Depends on where they retire from. Luckily, my husband retired from Raytheon as an engineer. Otherwise, we'd be trying to make do on a government retirement and a teachers' retirement and that's not a lot of money.

...which is why we tend to retire to small towns. Cost of living is much cheaper and we look much wealthier. In a big city, not so much.

originally posted by: Byrd

originally posted by: carewemust

originally posted by: sligtlyskeptical
1.97 million employees at a cash compensation cost of $136.3 billion

Equals $69,000 per employee on average.

Doesn't include bonuses, benefits, and parties. Taxpayers cover those too you know.

Very few employees get those. The military gets housing, and so do some (but not all) diplomats. Parties are not covered by taxpayers... or weren't in the past. The Presidents of the past paid for any parties that they hosted.

Like you said, relatively few get bonuses. They're not needed when 30,000 Federal Employees earn more than any U.S. Governor.

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