The federal worker is much aligned and widely considered to be a slacker. I should know - I worked short stints for USFS, BLM, USFWS, but most of the time for the Corps Of Engineers doing natural resource management work with a degree in Wildlife Management - for 34 years. I started in 1978 and got my first permanent job, making $6200 per year. I trapped the winter before that, living in a tent for 3 months - and made $12000.
There were 3.4 million federal employees in 1990. There were 3 million in 2024. The combined federal workforce costs 271 Billion dollars annually. They collect 571.6 billion dollars in user fees. The average annual federal salary is $106,462. When I retired in 2012, one person out of the entire staff of federal workers and contract workers made over $100,000, managing approx 100,000 acres of land and water, three dams, three power houses, providing flood control, water supply, power, and recreation to approx 10,000,000 recreational visits per year.
In my career, a probationary employee was considered to be a non temp employee with less than one year service. The next two years are considered career conditional, and after that, they are considered career. Where I have worked, a career employee who takes another job within the fed govt is not considered probationary - they are still a career employee. Most professional level employees within the organizations I have worked for started at gs- 5 level, with a bs degree, making about $16.50 per hour currently.
Very few jobs came with an automatic promotion. Most pay advances were through competitive application. If you were employed in a specialty type job, like civil engineering tech, water/sewer treatment, forester or biologist - after a couple of years, you were probably the same pay grade for the next 25 years.
When musk first started talking about govt workers, he said 6% of DC workers actually went to the office. In a week, it became 6% of govt workers - and nobody corrected it. I know folks in the fed workforce who worked all through covid. Very few rural field offices like USCEC, NRCS, USFS, NWR had extended situations with employees working at home.
Most field offices are cut to the bare bones as far as staff. I was always under the impression the farther up the chain you went, the more bloated the staff.
I, too, think it would have been much better to tell the offices there was a required 10% (or whatever) reduction in funding and let the offices decide where that is coming from. But getting rid of employees is the easy, quick way out - and as evidenced in this thread - popular among a lot of people.
I do agree we need to cut govt spending and dont disagree with including govt employees - I just think in their haste; they went about it the wrong way.
There were 3.4 million federal employees in 1990. There were 3 million in 2024. The combined federal workforce costs 271 Billion dollars annually. They collect 571.6 billion dollars in user fees. The average annual federal salary is $106,462. When I retired in 2012, one person out of the entire staff of federal workers and contract workers made over $100,000, managing approx 100,000 acres of land and water, three dams, three power houses, providing flood control, water supply, power, and recreation to approx 10,000,000 recreational visits per year.
In my career, a probationary employee was considered to be a non temp employee with less than one year service. The next two years are considered career conditional, and after that, they are considered career. Where I have worked, a career employee who takes another job within the fed govt is not considered probationary - they are still a career employee. Most professional level employees within the organizations I have worked for started at gs- 5 level, with a bs degree, making about $16.50 per hour currently.
Very few jobs came with an automatic promotion. Most pay advances were through competitive application. If you were employed in a specialty type job, like civil engineering tech, water/sewer treatment, forester or biologist - after a couple of years, you were probably the same pay grade for the next 25 years.
When musk first started talking about govt workers, he said 6% of DC workers actually went to the office. In a week, it became 6% of govt workers - and nobody corrected it. I know folks in the fed workforce who worked all through covid. Very few rural field offices like USCEC, NRCS, USFS, NWR had extended situations with employees working at home.
Most field offices are cut to the bare bones as far as staff. I was always under the impression the farther up the chain you went, the more bloated the staff.
I, too, think it would have been much better to tell the offices there was a required 10% (or whatever) reduction in funding and let the offices decide where that is coming from. But getting rid of employees is the easy, quick way out - and as evidenced in this thread - popular among a lot of people.
I do agree we need to cut govt spending and dont disagree with including govt employees - I just think in their haste; they went about it the wrong way.
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