More Representation for Private or Public Workers?
In the conservative magazine, The Weekly Standard, there is an article called The Privileged Public Sector by Andrew Ferguson. He provides some interesting information about the compensation of government versus private employees.
One point he makes is that “Over the last decade, the average federal salary has risen 33 percent faster than the inflation rate. When total compensation is measured—salary plus benefits like health insurance and pension guarantees—government workers have seen an increase of more than 36 percent, adjusted for inflation. Over the same period, private workers got an 8.8 percent increase.”
Ferguson also cites two economists, Andrew Biggs and Jason Richwine, as stating: “Private employees must work 13.5 months to earn what a comparable federal worker makes in 12.”
No wonder “the quit rate in private industry last year was 19.1 percent—that is, one out of five private employees quit his job in 2009. In the federal government the quit rate was 2.3 [percent]—that is, hardly anybody leaves Club Fed until they retire.”
Based on information like this, do you think we need to be creating more incentives for individuals to enter the government workforce?
Most of us who work as small business owners or in the private sector would argue that we don’t need to create more incentives. We pay the taxes that fund these government positions and programs, and we would prefer to see a leaner, more efficient government.
My opponent, Trey Gowdy, believes that incentivizing college students to be national service workers is a “good exchange.” However, I believe the government is big enough and we need more workers added to the private sector, not to government. On that basis, I ask you to consider who will be the best representative for the private sector-a small business owner, or another member of “Club Fed”?
Added by Dave Edwards
