Re: Federal Employees Total Income

Here's a thought, let's stop the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, pull our troops out, remove our bases in all foreign countries, stop protecting countries like Japan and Germany (who are more than capable of funding a defense force and protecting themselves), and stop spending $800 billion (total) each year on policing the world.

We have more than enough problems here at home.

"To him whom much has been given, much is required"
worked when we were a rich nation. Now we are paupers, and borrowing money on a credit card to give to charity not only makes no sense, it's downright stupid.

"Stupidity got us into this mess, why can't it get us out?"

(best quote I ever heard)

then we won't ever need to worry about overseas federal employees making more than Congress.

Problem solved.

Re: Federal Employees Total Income

Engineer
FAA
Tue Jun 23, 2009 11:16 AM

And we can rename our country Shangri-La or Utopia; Pollyanna will govern us; and we will all live happily ever after.

Re: Federal Employees Total Income

What?!?! We are still in Iraq and Afghanistan? I thought the president promised us (over and over, while he was Candidate Obama) that he would have all our troops home by July. And I thought he promised the whole world that he (personally) would close Gitmo. Do you mean to tell me that is still open, too? Does this mean we cannot believe every utterance of the Democratic administration - both Executive and Legislative branches?

With respect to salaries, I've worked for agencies under the GS schedule and those who have their own schedule. Don't let anyone fool you - under the Pay for Performance-type plans, you can receive a Fully Successful rating and get a raise as low as 1%. Gee, now who is getting the rest of that Pool of Funds. . . . Could it be that management is saving it for themselves?

Re: Federal Earnings

Not ONE of these pay scales are "new". Every single one has been in place during the last 8 MISERABLE years that "W" (pronounced dumb-yuh) was in power, the first several of which Republicans also had a majority in both the House and the Senate.

People who live in glass houses should think twice before insinuating wrong-doing or problems in the current, HONORABLE for a CHANGE administration.

I confess, and am proud, to believe that President Obama has his heart in the right place, and deserves our respect and support, far, far more than "W".

Re: Federal Earnings

HR Spec, while your creative use of upper case letters and your childish little word games with the former President's name are entertaining, that doesn't demonstrate anything except for the fact that you don't like him. It says nothing of substance about the article.

Re: Federal Earnings

Kind of like what Retired USPS did with his "transparency slam" against Obama, especially in light of the fact that this was happening during George Bush's entire tenure. So what exactly is your point?

Re: Federal Earnings

And, HR Spec, there have been alternative pay plans before former President Bush's administration.

Re: Federal Earnings

HR Specialist, you might find it interesting that all of the pay plans identified in the article were established during the Clinton Administration. I'm assuming you haven't been an HR Specialist long...

Re: So, how do I get a job at the SEC

Actually, I think the competition for jobs with the SEC and similar financial agencies are probably extremely high normally and especially right now in this economy. Keep in mind one thing, these applicants and employees are most likely those with advanced degrees from some of the world's most prestigious institutions of higher learning (e.g. Oxford, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc.). Last I check, not too many people are qualified for these jobs.

Outside of this down economy, these employees are likely to commend salaries that are way over $200K in the private industry so they likely sacrificed an enormous sum of money for "lower" paid public service jobs WHILE the economy was booming in favor of federal job security. It would be extremely hypocritical to fault them for their $200K salary now when they gave up the huge salary of private industry years ago to join public service when the government was desperate for their talents/skills during the "good" years.

Re: So, how do I get a job at the SEC

Why aren't people flocking to the SEC? Money isn't everything!! I took a cut in pay just to get out of there.

A few years ago, after the higher pay, all of the Employee/Labor Relations Staff that were over 50 were targeted and left within a 4 month period. Most of the staff that remained ended up filing and winning EEO complaints over the next couple years. Most of those complaints were settled for what the employees were asking, rather than have the SEC suffer the embarassment of public disclosure of how they were treating their employees.

If that is how they treat the people in Human Resources that are charged with defending the Agency against complaints, how do you think they treat the rest of the folks?

Re: So, how do I get a job at the SEC

The question should be, how could one qualify for a job at the SEC? I tried and found it was difficult to change job series within the agency without loosing grades and steps. Now we are talking about inter agencies here, HR always want one to work their way up even the job was annouced as certain grade and one does qualify for.

Re: So, how do I get a job at the SEC

Those investigation Jobs at the SEC are reserved only for members of Goldman Sacks, Wall St, or the hedgies. Regular honest folk need not apply.

And no, I am not saying the career workers are dishonest - not the case. It is all those Wall St types they bring in to work there who reek of the Money system.

Re: So, how do I get a job at the SEC

If you want to be an SEC Examiner or Manager, you need to have either a CPA or a law degree. That is why everyone doesn't work at the SEC and why they have had trouble recruiting and retaining employees. Unlike one post, they do not come from Goldman Sacks and Wall Street as their bonuses are larger than the SEC's salaries, at least until this year.

Re: Federal Employees who make more than Members of Co

Must be an agency specific thing. For us, upper management (i.e. agency director) makes submitting for comp time so much of a hassle that it's not even worth the submission. If one is willing to submit all the paperwork for comp time, once comp time is granted, it must be used within one to two pay periods and ABSOLUTELY no payout for comp time. Additionally, anything above GS12-Step6 does not qualify for overtime pay.

I say, if you feel so strongly against it then a simply anonymous email to your local Congressman or Representative detailing everything you stated could get things on the way to be corrected pretty quickly (especially in this economy).

Re: Federal Employees who make more than Members of Co

Actually, our agency does not pay overtime anymore.
All comp time has to be pre-authorize.
And if you don't keep track of your comp time and use it up within a certain period, you will loose it.

Re: Salary Database

That's because you make too much so the database blocked your access. lol

Re: Overall Wages

Perfect example of the misguided effort to lower the salary of government employees to "match" those of the private sector. Ridiculously misguided notion that has way too many holes to address here. In any case, the end result will be that those with advanced degrees and experience will leave public service for private sector jobs while those that are barely educated (i.e. GED, high school only, community college, Associated, laughing stock/non-challenging no name undergraduate, UofPhoenix, etc.) applicants will take these positions that they are unqualified for and make a mess of everything THUS leading to more mockery of the performance of the government. End result, more outsourcing of public sector jobs to the private industry via contractor jobs thus costing the government even more money. . . try 150%-200% overhead in addition to contractors' salaries for jobs that a well trained and qualified GS could do.

Re: Overall Wages

Dear Scientist,

Barely educated? Excuse me? I have a high school diploma, two years of college (2 semesters on Dean's List), 20 years of private sector employment experience, 20 years of public sector employment, have taken some formal courses, and am autodidactic (definition for you - self-teaching). I thought we were responding here to an article and comments, not trashing the rest of the Federal workforce, which is no better nor worse than any other large group of people.

As for a few isolated Feds making more than Congress, your "qualifications" point makes more sense there. When we apply for a job with the Fed, we must meet minimum qualifications in education and/or job experience. There are no minimum qualifications in education or experience for members of Congress.