Expect Washington D.C. House Prices to Go Up, Up, Up
invite response
2011 Oct 19, 1:27pm 2,905 views 4 comments
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REpro
2011 Oct 19, 3:51pm
Exactly same trend dominated in Greece over last couple of decades. All came to the point, that there are not enough working folks to support overgrowth government.
This is while the actual bureaucracy itself has gotten smaller -- lower number of federal employees per capita, I believe. This means the largesse is going to government contractors, most likely, and also means that the federal employees we still have these days are probably more qualified than the paper pushers of yore.
Federal employees whose compensation averages more than $126,000
It's annoying when statistics like this are used because they aren't directly comparable. People read this and think federal employees make that much in base salary. Also, this is average, not median. In reality, that number includes benefits. Anyone whose job has health insurance, among other things such as 401(k) match, any sort of pension plan, disability insurance, transportation benefits, etc., could report a much higher compensation than their real actual salary.
Benefits paid by an employer could easily be 20-35% more than salary, and possibly more. The percentage is actually higher for lower paid employees, since healthcare is a fixed cost generally when covering the same number of people. It's possible federal benefits are even higher than private sector too, although the private sector could give you stock, stock purchase plans, or options.
Government salaries are quite easy to figure out if you look at GS scales. GS scales are also adjusted by metro area because of cost of living. For example, it's a lot easier to make $100K base salary as a federal employee in San Francisco than it is in Helena, MT.
Even if you take out benefits from this equation, government salaries still appear to be healthy, but you do have to remember that those jobs higher in the GS scale often require people with very good qualifications, and it's entirely possible that the average civilian federal job requires more qualifications than the average private sector job. Sure, there are paper pushers in government, but there are plenty of paper pushers in the private sector too.
zzyzzx
2012 Jan 24, 4:24am
I just checked local real estate listings and I am seeing 2003 prices in Laurel, MD.
Beltway Earnings Make U.S. Capital Richer Than Silicon Valley
Federal employees whose compensation averages more than $126,000 and the nation’s greatest concentration of lawyers helped Washington edge out San Jose as the wealthiest U.S. metropolitan area, government data show.
The U.S. capital has swapped top spots with Silicon Valley, according to recent Census Bureau figures, with the typical household in the Washington metro area earning $84,523 last year. The national median income for 2010 was $50,046.
The figures demonstrate how the nation’s political and financial classes are prospering as the economy struggles with unemployment above 9 percent and thousands of Americans protest in the streets against income disparity, said Kevin Zeese, director of Prosperity Agenda, a Baltimore-based advocacy group trying to narrow the divide between rich and poor.
“There’s a gap that’s isolating Washington from the reality of the rest of the country,†Zeese said. “They just get more and more out of touch.â€
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-19/beltway-earnings-make-u-s-capital-richer-than-silicon-valley.html