The Week in Comments: Ageism, money and retirement
The best in reader reaction to recent articles.
A roundup of some of the comments received this week in the GovExec.com Mailbag. All comments are presented in their original, unedited form.
On TSP has poor showing in August
TSP is working from the Government's perspective. Compared to CSRS, they are saving money on pensions. Oh, since when did they really care about us? Why do you think so many under FERS are working longer. Most CSRS retirees I know retired after 25 years. Try doing that under FERS. You'll see a lot more denture cream dispensers in the offices.
Again, let's bring back the availability of making multiple interfund transactions not just a limit of 2 and a 3rd of moving all into G fund. It's our money, let us control it and play this volatile market the way the rest of the world does. Did I say oversight, restrictions, control....why yes!
Please keep it is perspective. The reason FERS came about is because the CSRS cost so much. It wasn't to make one stay in the work force longer. Be thankful you even have a retirement. Many in the private sector retired only to get a letter stating their pensions and insurance had been terminated. This is very unlikely to happen to FEDs.
On Poll: Feds earn too much dough
In the long term mantra of "it's the economy, stupid", everyone will say a Fed is overpaid. Was the same poll taken during the dot com boom, the recent financial and real estate boom, or during the manufacturing boom of the 1950s-60s? If you're unemployed, the economy is shaky, your employer may fire you at any moment, or the stability of your lifestyle is in doubt, government employees will always make too much money. I think most people who are polled don't realize that the biggest slices of the Federal budget go back to them in the form of subsidies: farm subsidies, Medicare/ Medicaid, Social Security, tax credits for children, mortgage deductions, etc. In terms of the overall Federal budget, employee salaries are a pretty small piece of it. At the state level, however, it is the opposite. Most state costs come from employee costs.
I would feel more confident in the survey results if the people surveyed had received their PhD, published a number of papers in peer reviewed journals, worked for a number of years, then finally qualified and applied for a federal job that requires well north of 60 hours per week of work, endless bureaucratic paperwork, are accepted for the position and take a pay cut, all while their peers that went into private industry got a job at a higher pay rate right out of school. Then, and only then, would I respect that person's opinion that federal workers are overpaid.
It was no cake walk it took me over 20 yrs to get from GS 5 to GS 14 and during that time I had five cross country and foreign transfers three of them I paid out of pocket. When times were good all my friends on the outside joked and said I was dumb to be a Fed when contractors doing same work made so much more! Well now times are tough just like it is every ten years now I am paid too much I have seen this all before many times!
The large majority of people are totally ignorant of what government workers do, so how is their opinion even relevant? We are simply an easy target. That said, there's no doubt some people are absolutely overpaid....as are some, too, in private industry (I've worked in PI; not a lot different from government as far as deadwood and overpay goes - except the overpay is measured in 5 and 6 digits, not 4 and 5).
Soemthing that doesn't get taken into account on these salary surveys is the fact that the government contracts out most of the lower paid, unskilled labor. A majority of the workforce is professional white collar or highly skilled blue collar, with comensurate salaries. I would think this skews the average an gives the appearance of being higher than nongovernment average salaries.
On Burning Question: Do young managers discriminate against older workers?
I don't think they discriminate...They just don't know how to manage them. Younger Federal managers have a tendency to avaoid confrontation with anyone and are beginning to manage all employees by e-mail
The real question is, why is the younger, less experienced individual promoted over the older, more experienced? It's a silly situation, period.
in my agency there is a huge age discrimination, they are brining in all these "kids" fresh out of college, no management experience and putting them in leadership positions, totally overlooking the older workers that have been there for ages, these kids have no clue how to manage and they have a "clan or clique" mentality about them, you only see them with others their own age, it is pretty bad when the federal government and DFAS in particular discriminates like this.
The problem is not just age discrimination. New managers -- both young and old -- are struggling to get by with fewer financial resources. They look at their pay structure and realize that older workers earn more, whether by seniority or longevity, than our younger colleagues. Also, with fewer resources, there are fewer advancement opportunities. As a result, some younger managers are choosing to "drink the Kool-Aid" to jump ahead, with predictable results.
It's not so much that younger managers are discriminating against an older workforce as it is an older workforce failing to follow direction from a younger manager. If you get passed over by someone younger, you should be looking in the mirror and asking some hard questions. If you feel like you are getting managed via email then wake up! How do you get rid of dead weight on the federal payroll? Document, document, document! The best way to do that is through email. The older employees probably are not seeing the counseling sessions for what they are...
What about all the older managers who discriminate against younger workers? Jealousy is a nasty thing in the workplace and it only causes unfair treatment and hard feelings when you abuse your younger workers.
On Defense insourcing to continue at military services
wahahahahah! Stop insourcing your taking our jobs away. We defense contractors need the money pit created by outsourcing, now you take it away, wahahahaha, stop your hurting us by taking away the money pit, wahahahah.
These are the same comments I heard when we out-sourced: saving money, you are taking our jobs away.
Only low paid housekeeping, food service and such jobs have saved money when contracted out only because the contractor pays very little benefits to those employees. All contractor professional employees (mostly ex-military officers) always earn more, have better benefits and with the contractor fees and overhead the true cost is always higher than the cost for their civilian co-workers doing the same work.
Its interesting that Government employees note that there is a lot of bloat in their organization, whether it be contractor or Government. Expanding Government doesn't necessarily mean more gets done, just that it takes more people to get the same amount done.
On Federal fundraising drive aims to build on last year's success
Yes, we will donate generously because we are so overpaid.
Every extra cent I have this year is going to Candidates who are runnig on a balanced budget -cut spending platform. No other charity shoudl even be thought of till we can get America back to a sane level of spending.
On Hundreds of Lockheed Martin execs take buyout offer
It worked for Ford, they avoided borrowing by running smarter and leaner.
I wonder if their execs' buyout was limited to $25K, same as for Federal civilians...
Too bad the civil service doesn't offer a palatable, equitable, fair "buy-out" retirement program.
On FEHBP unlikely to mirror private sector health insurance trends
Overall the FEHBP negotiators are the worse I have seen. The plans they negotiate for government employees are worthless unless you are half dead.
How soon will the FEHBP be changed to the employee plus one dependent option? I really don't want to be paying for some other's 26 year-olds and under dependents. Paying my own premiums is expensive enough, since we are not getting a decent raise in 2011.
The misinformation these people are putting out is unbelievable, is there no one left with some integrity. In the last couple of years the whole system has lost any clarity it had. We are going to pay more and get less for medical pure and simple. If that isn't enough the tax bill for all of the spending, borrowing, and inflation is coming due, so cinch up your seat belt and get ready.