So much for federal job security

[Broomstick]

I am not aware of ANY minimum wage Federal government jobs. When I worked as a temporary employee for the US Census the starting wage for any job connected with the Census was several dollars above the minimum, and for what I was doing was twice the minimum wage - for a job that required no more than a high school diploma or GED (at most). For entry level jobs not requiring college the pay probably is higher than the equivalent in the private sector.

For jobs requiring more education, such as those requiring college degrees, probably the opposite is true. The benefit has always been steady long-term employment, benefits, and a pension to balance out the lower annual wages. (This does not apply to elected positions).

But the title of this thread is misleading - Federal job security hasn't changed at all with this, just a freeze of COLA. Should I add that COLA is in no way guaranteed in the private sector? Mandatory COLA is a perk, another one of those "benefits" of Federal work that isn't a given in the private sector. Heck, even the unions around here are starting to give in to actual wage decreases, something they vowed never to do.

Given the current situation, most people just aren't going to be sympathetic. When most Americans have seen their "real income" decrease over the past few years they're not going to shed a tear over someone who is keeping their job simply not getting a raise for a few years.

[ArmorPierce]

That would depend on how the people claiming average Federal pay is higher are calculating government paychecks versus private sector. Are the calculations using "all private sector employment" vs "all Federal employment," or "private sector employment requiring similiar levels of education/experience compared to Federal counterparts?"

If you look at "average private sector employment" and include all the people working part-time jobs at McDonalds or other minimum-wage work, then it may make Federal employee income look a lot higher relative to private sector. How many Federal government jobs are minimum-wage? It doesn't seem reasonable to tell a guy with a master's degree and a decade of experience, "Look, you're paid too much compared to this guy in high school who is working a cash register at McDonalds. You're going to have to take a pay cut."

To be blunt, with the current state of American politics and media, I have a hard time believing anything a politician, reporter or "analyst" claims unless they provide the source of their numbers and the calculations used. Unfortunately, real-world political claims don't have the same standards of evidence that SDN does for sci-fi debates -- which, now that I think about it, is kind of a sad commentary on politics. Or at least a sad commentary on the American willingness to believe anything the guy on TV tells us as long as it's what we want to hear.

I am talking position for position. A private sector vs government accountant. There were some stats released some time ago and it showed that for most positions, government workers were paid more generously, and this is not including benefits which government workers get a lot better of. It was posted on this forums and I can attempt to find it if you'd like. Goverment workers getting paid less than their private secter counterparts is a big myth except for the highest level of jobs which the vast majority of the population will never be able to attain.

Lets not even get into the fact that the good ol' boy network is actually stronger in government jobs than it is in the private sector.