It’s Good To Be The King … And His Minions … Federal Employees Much Better Off Than Private Workers

U.S. Federal Employment Related To Higher Financial Well-Being

 

 

 

 

” U.S. federal government workers are thriving in their financial well-being more than the rest of the workforce. On average, 44% of federal government employees are thriving financially, compared with 34% of all other workers in the U.S.

  These findings are based on more than 80,000 interviews conducted with U.S. adults, aged 18 and older, who were employed full time from Feb. 16, 2014-Feb. 15, 2015 as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. For each of the five elements of well-being, Gallup classifies respondents as “thriving” (well-being that is strong and consistent), “struggling” (well-being that is moderate or inconsistent), or “suffering” (well-being that is low and inconsistent).

  Federal pay has been a topic of debate for years, with differing accounts of whether federal employees are paid more, no more or less than non-federal employees. However, financial well-being is not a direct report of salary, benefits or overall compensation. It is a composite of responses to the perceptions of standards of living, affordability of basic necessities and financial woes based on region of country, family size, cost of living, debt and various other factors that go into subjective assessments of financial situations.

  Given this description, it is possible for a person to have a higher salary but experience lower financial well-being. But for those who experience higher levels of financial well-being, they feel as if they can spend time and energy addressing other facets of well-being in their day-to-day lives, including their purpose, social, community and physical well-being. These data show that federal employment is likely associated with higher levels of economic stability and reductions in the stress of providing for a comfortable lifestyle because federal workers report higher financial well-being.”

 

 

    Lest anyone think otherwise , the tables have turned and it is you and I that are working for them . Gallup has the details .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

—

Obama’s Amnesty Paves Way For Increased Illegal Immigrant Tax Benefits Fraud

Obama Opens Fraud-Ridden Benefits Programs To Illegal Immigrants

 

 

 

 

” President Obama’s unilateral executive action on immigration will make hundreds of thousands, perhaps more than a million, illegal immigrants eligible for federal transfer payments. That will be done primarily through two widely used programs — the Earned Income Tax Credit, or EITC, and the Additional Child Tax Credit, or ACTC.

  As it turns out, those two programs are already among the most corrupt and fraud-ridden in the entire federal government. A newly-released report from the inspector general of the Internal Revenue Service confirms that the EITC is plagued by fraud (which was already well known) and also reveals for the first time that the ACTC is even worse.

  The two programs, intended for low-income workers, are what is known as refundable tax credits. That means they give workers a tax refund that is larger than their tax liability. So a family with a tax bill of $1,000 might receive an EITC “refund” of $5,000, meaning the family doesn’t write a check to the government but rather receives a check from the government. The ACTC works similarly for low-income workers with children.”

 

Thanks to Byron York at the Washington Examiner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

—

Cato Reports On Our “Gold-Plated” Government “Civil Servants”

Government Gold-Plating

 

 

 

 

 

” Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) released his annual Wastebook this past week. It contains a laundry list of doozies. The U.S. government’s gold-plating operations included $190,000 to study compost digested by worms, $297 million for the purchase of an unused mega blimp, and $1 million on a Virginia bus stop where only 15 people can huddle under a half-baked roof. These questionable (read: absurd) expenditures only represent the tip of the iceberg.

  Just consider the following: the Speaker of the House currently receives an annual salary of $223,500, and will receive a payment of roughly that amount, depending on the years of service, for life. An annual payment of this magnitude amounts to about five times the average annual wage in the United States. But that’s not all. For those who have had different positions in Congress, their retirements can be augmented. For example, Nancy Pelosi will not receive $223,500 for life, but roughly double that. Why? Because she is a member of Congress, currently the House of Representatives’ Minority Leader, and a retired Speaker of the House. For purposes of computing retirement pay, Congress adds and accumulates. They do not net.”

 

Read more at Cato

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

—

 

“Earning” Nearly $300K Per Year Makes Most Congress Members Part Of The 1%

At $286K, Members Of Congress Earn A Lot for How Little They Accomplish

 

 

 

 

 

” Congress has just returned from a 5-week recess to a lot of unfinished business—it has yet to send even one of the 12 spending bills due on Sept. 30 to the president’s desk.

  A new report by the Taxpayers Protection Alliance and Our Generation reveals that members of Congress take home a big paycheck for meager results in Washington. At $174,000, members of Congress make more than 95 percent of American income earners. Once generous benefits are added, members’ compensation totals $286,000 per year. And at least one member of Congress argued recently even this generous compensation package wasn’t enough—that Congress also should get a housing stipend.

  Congress’s main job is to budget. But when it comes to passing annual spending bills, members of Congress have not accomplished that in full and on time since 1997. Many were hopeful Congress would use this year’s head start into the appropriations process (Congress agreed on the spending level in December 2013, instead of April 2014) to actually meet the deadlines, but such hope has long given way to resignation. There is simply not enough time left in this fiscal year. “

 

 

Story continues

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

—

BLS Reports State Workers Cost Nearly 50% More Than Private Employees

Government Workers Cost 45% More Than Private Sector Workers

 

 

 

 

” The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced on March 12th that the total cost of employing a state or local government worker is 45% more than an equivalent worker in the private sector. 

  For the month of December 2013, employers in private industry spent an average of $29.63 per employee hour worked, but the equivalent cost for a government worker averaged $42.89 per hour. Not only do government employees average 33% higher pay than those in the private sector, their pension and retirement benefit costs are now an incredible 254% higher also. Given that compensation formulas for federal, state, and local government are comparable, it should come as no surprise that this year spending by the U.S. government will exceed revenue by an all-time high of $744.2 billion, and our gross national debt is a stunning $18.5 trillion. ”

 

Read it and weep … or better yet get mad 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

—

Coming Pension Meltdown

 The 10 Most Troubled City Systems

 

” More and more cities, counties, and even some states will face the harsh reality of having to fix their pension systems or deal with a Detroit-style bankruptcy.

“This is happening in too many cities and towns across America, where social services, because they can be cut, are cut. Because pensions and bonds constitutionally cannot be cut, they’re the protected class,” Wall Street financial analyst Meredith Whitney told CNBC.

“I think you’re going to see a real issue of neighbor against neighbor on these very issues,” said Whitney, who recently co-founded Kenbelle Capital LP, a New York hedge fund.”

 

That’s the bad news . Here is the worse news .

 

“But here’s the real rub: experts are warning that many pension systems, those claiming they are well funded and those who say they aren’t, have all been using rosy projections about future investment returns.

In a recent editorial in Barron’s, Thomas Donlan writes that pension funds have “hidden the results with dubious financial reporting.”

Detroit, he says, was using the standard 8 percent return on assets, widely used by other funds. Donlan argues that is foolhardy to claim an 8 percent rate of return.

Consider that since January 1, 2001, the Dow Jones has appreciated, on average, a paltry 2.2 percent, with the S&P growing just 1.36 percent.”

    Municipal governments throughout the nation have been hiding their unfunded liabilities with parlor games and dubious economic assumptions that guarantee that no matter how bleak things seem today , they will be orders of magnitude worse in the very near future . 

 

 

 

 

 

 

—

 

 

Frederic Bastiat on the Seen and Unseen

The UAW: Never a Day When It Was Helpful

Myth-Busting The Creation Of Michigan’s Middle-Class

 

 

” If you question ten Right-to-Work supporters in Michigan, then you will find more than one who will profess some version of the sentiment that the United Auto Workers was “needed in the past, but has outlived its usefulness.” Those saying this may even generally agree with hard-line UAW apologists who believe the union “built the middle class” in the state of its birth. But while Big Labor needs this myth to make its case, it contradicts a big piece of the history. Indeed, the UAW’s real historical accomplishment may have been nearly destroying some of Michigan’s middle class.

 

 

 

 

Take Japan as the clearest example. Japan didn’t really begin building passenger carsuntil the 1960s, and the Japanese Automobile Manufacturers Association wasn’t born until 1967. But just ten years later, American automobile makers and the UAW were under siege from Japanese competition, failing to adapt, and by 1979 Chrysler was asking for the first of its federal bailouts.

 

 

The price of Michigan’s ties to the UAW, its paychecks for no work, its politics, and so much more has been that high. The winners are the newly-minted middle class auto workers working in foreign-named auto plants in other places, many of them Right to Work states like Alabama and Mississippi.

The impact of the Second World War built the middle class auto worker in Michigan, and the impact of Big Labor on Michigan has moved the home of the middle class autoworker elsewhere.”

Related articles

• Michigan Stuns Labor as Blue Model Continues to Unravel (blogs.the-american-interest.com)
• Outside the Box: Michigan seeks new paradigm for job growth (marketwatch.com)
• How Does ‘Right-To-Work Affect Unions? (npr.org)
• Cagle Post – Political Cartoons & Commentary – ” Right-To Work In Michigan : 24 Down, 26 To Go (mbcalyn.com)
• Chrysler Had To Rehire The Workers Caught Getting Stoned During Lunch (jalopnik.com)
• Chrysler’s Drunk, Stoned Autoworkers Are Back Making Cars (thetruthaboutcars.com)
• Michigan Lawmakers Approve Union-Dues Measures Amid Protests (bloomberg.com)
• UAW Leader Slams Koch Brothers Over Right To Work Law (crooksandliars.com)

Feel Our Pain …

Federal Workers to Congress: Leave Us Out of Deficit Deal

 

 

 ” The Federal-Postal Coalition — a group representing more than two dozen federal employee unions — pleaded with Congress on Monday to spare their members in any deal related to the “fiscal cliff.”

Federal workers, the coalition wrote in a letter, have contributed more than their fair share toward reducing the debt and are the only group that has been targeted so heavily.

“Federal and postal employees and their families are hardworking, middle-class Americans who are struggling during these tough times just like other Americans,” the group wrote. “No other group has been asked to financially contribute the way they have, and it is time our nation’s leaders found other ways to reduce the deficit than continually taking from those who have dedicated their lives to public service.”

According to the coalition, federal employees have funded $60 billion in budget savings in 2011 and 2012 as a result of their ongoing pay freeze and an additional $28 billion in savings will be derived from the freeze extension through March 2013.

Federal workers also contributed $15 billion toward the budget in 2011 when the contribution rate toward retirement pensions was raised to 2.3 percent for new employees. “

Related articles

• Austerity watch US of A…. Federal workers don’t want the fiscal cliff deal to impact them….. Detroit City Coucil rejects a key condition for bailout – due to have negative 4.8 million cash flow by the end of December….. (fredw-catharsisours.blogspot.com)
• AFGE Urges Lawmakers To Oppose More Cuts To Federal Employee Pay (sys-con.com)
• U.S. Postal Service Reports $15.9 Billion Loss (nytimes.com)
• U.S. pension insurer runs record $34-billion deficit (chasvoice.blogspot.com)

Paging Wesley Mouch

  “The Occupy Wall Street protesters
ultimately cannot entertain arguments about the value of the free market because they seek out and embrace a culture of dependency, where advocating for more benefits for themselves and others fulfills their deepest values.”