Wednesday, December 05, 2012

Yup. Gummint Workers Don't Really Work Too Much

In line with the post below (see especially the link to the RoJo proposals), we have documented and verifiable evidence that taxpayers are being hosed for about $100 Bn/year++ in Gummint payrolls.

ONE HUNDRED BILLION++ per YEAR.

...What we found was that during a typical workweek, private-sector employees work about 41.4 hours. Federal workers, by contrast, put in 38.7 hours, and state and local government employees work 38.1 hours. In a calendar year, private-sector employees work the equivalent of 3.8 more 40-hour workweeks than federal employees and 4.7 more weeks than state and local government workers. Put another way, private employees spend around an extra month working each year compared with public employees. If the public sector worked that additional month, governments could theoretically save around $130 billion in annual labor costs without reducing services.

Of course, that would require actual "management" and "oversight."  Given what we know about Congress and the State Legislature, no Gummint employee is at risk.

4 comments:

Saint Revolution said...


Four men were bragging about how smart their dogs are.

The first man was an Engineer, the second man was an Accountant, the third man was a Chemist, the fourth was a State Worker.

To show off, the Engineer called to his dog, “T-square, do your stuff.” T-square pranced over to a desk, took out some paper and a pen and promptly drew a circle, a square, and a triangle.

Everyone agreed that was pretty smart.

But the Accountant said his dog could do better. He called his dog and said, “Spreadsheet, do your stuff.” Spreadsheet went out into the kitchen and returned with a dozen cookies. He divided them into 4 equal piles of 3 cookies each.

Everyone agreed that was good.

But the Chemist said his dog could do better. He called his dog and said, “Measure, do your stuff.” Measure got up, walked over to the fridge, took out a quart of milk, got a 10 ounce glass from the cupboard and poured exactly 8 ounces without spilling a drop.

Everyone agreed that was good.

Then the three men turned to the State Worker and said, “What can your dog do?”. The State Worker called to his dog and said, “Coffee Break, do your stuff.” Coffee Break jumped to his feet, ate the cookies, drank the milk, took a dump on the paper, had sex with the other three dogs, claimed he injured his back while doing so, filed a grievance report for unsafe working conditions, put in for Worker’s Compensation and went home for the rest of the day on sick leave.

Anonymous said...

Teacher, firefighters, police officers, and military are government employees. My wife is a government employee and she works 56-60 hours a week and is salaried which means no overtime.

That said, isn't it just too bad that some employees are not exploited by their employers?

Anonymous said...

The Dog asked the Saint, "Shalt I lick the peanut butter from thy thigh?"

Anonymous said...

Ah, yes, Andrew Biggs, the conservative answer to Paul Krugman.

Biggs, not surprisingly, says little about his methodology to allow the reader to determine if their results are of value or are worthless.



How many timesheets were analyzed?

How many of those were from hourly paid as opposed to salaried workers?

How many workers from both the private and public sectors did work that could be done at home?

Without some guidance from the authors about these particular variables, and knowing that the WSJ's opinion page editor will publish almost anything that supports an anti-government line without asking questions about its provenance, this "verifiable evidence" by Biggs is immediately called into question.

Furthermore, in ANY organization, there are 3 groups: (1) the high-end achievers who push hard, work long hours, and keep the wheels moving; (2) the slugs at the bottom who either haven't the ability or the attitude to do much more than show up; and (3) the vast middle ground who show up and do what they're told, depending on the direction, drive and ability of Group #1 for their motivation.

Ultimately, Biggs' statistical analysis of hours on the job is meaningless, because what is important is not how many hours get put in, but OUTCOMES, ie, what gets accomplished. Anyone who believes in results-oriented measures knows that input measures give you very little meaningful management information.