Half Full or … ?

Pundits are buzzing about a recent study that shows federal employee salaries ahead of private sector wages.  Count on the pundits using that difference to say government workers are overpaid.  You will listen in vain for anyone to conclude that the study means private industry paychecks have fallen too far behind and that private sector employees are underpaid – except maybe here!

First, when you look at the list of jobs in the study, you’ll find that a large portion of the jobs are unionized jobs in the government – the last bastion of traditional unions.  Almost none of them are unionized in the private sector in any significant numbers.  From this we could conclude that the study emphasizes the benefits of belonging to a union expressed in actual differences in earnings over time.

Or, given that we’re told that the top 1% of this country now controls more of its wealth than ever before in history (close to 50% some say), you could conclude that the study further illustrates the upward migration of America’s wealth to the uber-rich.  You could conclude that the study indicates that in those most volatile labor markets – the private sector – real wages have declined to rock bottom levels compared to their CPI-indexed colleagues in government.

But, no, that will not even be discussed.  I guarantee that you will hear the hannitys shrilly complaining that they are being robbed by that overpaid DMV clerk.  Meanwhile, political appointees and highly placed executives at the top of government make six-figure salaries while in government, and enormous fortunes when they revolving-door into lobbying their old agency.

Speaking of overpaying, if we’re really serious about recovering monies overpaid, leave the little piker employees alone and go after Wall Street where reports say we overpaid by about $78 billion for bailouts.  Yeah – that’s 78 Billion with a very big “B.”

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