
US Federal Employee Salaries (2012) - merinid
https://bits.enigma.io/s/t/e15d88f664c0d70d578452b8054b145a
======
kalleboo
You could probably make some amazing visualizations of this data.

In Sweden, all the tax records are public information. You can literally look
up how much your neighbor makes in a year. So each year after tax season, the
tabloids all print up huge lists of "the richest people in YOUR
neighborhood!". I've always been disappointed that with all this data, they've
never gone beyond that and visualized the data geographically.

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csmatt
I'm not judging one way or another, but is privacy not something the Swedish
people are interested in?

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MaysonL
Given that the government already knows, and either your employer or your
accountant knows, and your bank has a pretty good idea, why do you think your
income is to any meaningful extent still private?

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jlgreco
You ever listen to a friend, who has recently hit a rough patch, talking about
their difficulty paying their bills and think _" gee, this would be a rather
inappropriate time to mention how much money I make."_?

That is where the desire for wage privacy comes from for me. Talking about how
much you make, _outside the workplace_ , has no benefits. It is just going to
make the conversation awkward, or somebody is going to feel bad about
themselves, or somebody is going to get an irritating spark of envy where none
needed to exist. As far as I am concerned, you may as well publicize dick
length.

(Public employees opt-in to the public knowing how much they make. The reason
the public gets to know in that case is because the public is paying that
salary. There is an employee/employer relationship there.)

~~~
revelation
Employees and employer form a market like any other. Societal norms around
"wage privacy" sabotages this market at the cost of employees.

~~~
jlgreco
Note my emphasis in this snippet of my comment: "Talking about how much you
make, _outside the workplace_ ,..."

Discussing wages with your employers/colleagues has advantages, and without it
collective bargaining is difficult to impossible. However coworkers account
for a slight fraction of those that most people interact with.

There is no utility in me (someone who works in tech) telling my brother (who
works in aerospace) how much I make, and vice versa.

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coldcode
OK how do you do anything other that scroll the list?

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fpp
Similar data, but still mostly limited to higher pay levels and by government
department is available for the UK ( see for example:
[http://data.gov.uk/dataset/staff-organograms-and-pay-
departm...](http://data.gov.uk/dataset/staff-organograms-and-pay-department-
for-international-development) )

a side note: It is generally accepted that the US government pays the highest
salaries compared to other government agencies worldwide. This is the reason
why the U.N. uses the US government scales and pays as their base (highest
salaries of all member states) - of course before they put their "gravy" on it
and more than double it.

~~~
jonnathanson
My understanding is that US government salaries are high because the US
private sector pays so well for comparable positions. The US is in the
peculiar business of competing with itself, in a sense, or at least with its
own economic model.

Private vs. public isn't such a teeth-gnashing, nail-biting dilemma for many
other countries, who generally seem to do a better job of mentally separating
the two sectors. The general agreement in other countries is that public =
stable job, lower pay, higher "public service" calling; private = higher
salary, less stability, etc.

Of course, this isn't taking into account countries like China -- where a
government position is the best route into cushy, lucrative gigs in the
private sector, and in fact, that's often the entire point. (To some degree,
this is also the case in the US, at least at the higher levels of public
service.) But I digress.

~~~
RougeFemme
I think the same public/private comparisons for salary, stability, etc. apply
in the U.S., at least for some job categories. It's just that, as you said,
the private sector pays so well for comparable positions. Salary-wise, I think
less skilled position do better with government, but the higher-skilled
positions do better in the private sector. If you see a government
engineer/scientist/mathematician working alongside a contractor in the same
role, the government employee almost always makes less.

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twoodfin
Maybe I'm missing something, but is there any way to sort or filter this data?

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petsounds
soon, but not yet... this just went live last night :)

clarification edit: this is the end result of a new feature that allows enigma
users to publicly share a frozen table state (up to 10 pages), which takes
into place the current filter/sort state

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runamok
It would be really interesting to compare this to private sector jobs (where
applicable) taking into consideration pension, benefits, etc.

~~~
acdha
The confound is that senior federal positions tend to be skewed more towards
mid-to-late career due to the push over the last decade or two to hire
contractors instead of staff. I don't believe there's any public information
available which would help you distinguish that.

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therobot24
wow a librarian at a GS14 level:

[name removed] DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH SERVICE
LIBRARIAN Maryland Prince George's County BELTSVILLE GS 14 119238

I know the GS schedule is based on how long you work as opposed to how well
you work, but i didn't think that non-STEM or non-Management roles made above
GS11 or 12.

~~~
rayiner
Unless you're talking about a public library catering to homeless people and
children, a "librarian" is typically an educated professional, usually with an
advanced degree, who has enough subject matter expertise to efficiently help
researchers find relevant materials.

~~~
aestra
What an ignorant thing to say. Public libraries do more than cater to homeless
people and children.

They also employee the advanced degree educated professional librarians you
are talking about too.

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walshemj
But they are correct a librarian is a professional just the same as an
engineer

~~~
aestra
Indeed! Librarians are often very highly educated, the couple I know have
masters degrees. If you need something, no matter how obscure, you can ask a
librarian, they will know how to get it for you.

I was disagreeing that public libraries cater to only the lowly forms of
society (homeless and children) and don't require educated librarians. They do
more than babysit and they employ such librarians. They also employ, for
example, teenagers to stock shelves.

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Dirlewanger
Great UI, love it. Didn't realize how many cushy jobs the government
has...damn. Now I know why my parents kept telling me to look in the public
sector first and foremost.

~~~
phaus
Most of the people who are making 100-200k would make at the very least double
that if they were in the private sector. A GS-15 is equivalent to a Brigadier
General(Who would be in charge of thousands of people). Now, keep in mind that
some technology positions have inflated GS ranks because it was the only way
they could get the salaries high enough to attract talent. Security analysts
and programmers don't come cheap.

Working for the government can be great, depending on who you work for and
whether or not it fits your personality, but don't be deluded into thinking
that the majority of government employees have cushy, high paying jobs.

Note: Politicians and Senior Executive Service employees are a different
story, many of them are overpaid and ineffective at their jobs.

~~~
chernevik
The government has significantly _lower_ turnover than the private sector,
which isn't what microeconomics says we would see if the workers could make
that much more by leaving. It's more consistent with the suggestion that the
workers would make considerably less if they left.

So:

1\. Microeconomics is seriously, perhaps completely, wrong; or, 2\. Federal
employees are much more motivated by non-financial rewards, such as the
satisfaction of public service, than the rest of us, and are, therefore,
better people than the rest of us; or, 3\. They couldn't make more in the
private sector, and would probably make less.

Take your pick.

~~~
stonemetal
Do those salary numbers include the benefits like retirement? Public jobs are
one of the few pension gigs left. Also their health insurance is pretty good.

~~~
adestefan
The health insurance is actually pretty bad and really expensive. The pension
isn't that cushy either. They changed the pension system in the mid-80s, but
people still spout off the false notion that you're somehow set on a
government pension.

~~~
RougeFemme
My understanding is that the health insurance is still better than what is
typically available for private sector employees. The pension system is not
nearly as good as it used to be, true, but it does exist, which is not true
for most private sector employees.

I've worked both sides of the fence, so I'm not flinging arrows.

~~~
adestefan
Same here. The 4 different insurance products I've used in the private sector
are much better than I ever had access to as a government employee.

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jessepollak
This is really awesome. The UI/UX feels a little unapproachable and the
feature set seems lacking (what do I do when I get to that page) , but I'm
sure it's infinitely better than the alternative.

One small thing that's nice is the column summaries:
[http://cl.ly/image/2D1S2h0o0B09](http://cl.ly/image/2D1S2h0o0B09).

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msh345
Here are some general stats from OPM on federal employees:
[http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-
docum...](http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-
documentation/federal-employment-reports/reports-publications/profile-of-
federal-civilian-non-postal-employees/)

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angersock
Um....

I know it's probably your core business and all, but from a civic standpoint,
would you mind posting the raw data so we can play with it?

EDIT:

Thanks folks!

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petsounds
sure! we actually posted a link to the raw CSV before we pushed this in the
beginning of the shutdown:
[https://twitter.com/enigma_io/status/385166410063691776](https://twitter.com/enigma_io/status/385166410063691776)

~~~
macNchz
Very cool, thanks! Already having some fun:

Location with highest average salary among stations with >25 federal
employees:

Islip, NY - 496 employees

$43,162 min

$140,781 avg

$179,700 max

~~~
Amadou
That looks like Brookhaven National Lab.

~~~
turgidElderly
Nope. BNL is a ~30 minute drive from Islip. BNL is sandwiched between
Ridge/Middle Island, Yaphank, and Shorham Wading River (10 minutes from where
the aborted SWR nuclear power plant rests). BNL belongs to the township of
Brookhaven.

Meanwhile, Islip is the home of McCarthur Airport, a medium sized airport that
serves the east end of Long Island.

~~~
Amadou
You are completely correct. I got Upton confused with Islip.

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petsounds
for anyone who's interested, i generated a link to this sorted by the base
salary (descending):
[https://bits.enigma.io/s/t/8b6aa881e02d8c2b851a3d5140c263f4](https://bits.enigma.io/s/t/8b6aa881e02d8c2b851a3d5140c263f4)

and here's a link to a full export (csv): [https://s3.amazonaws.com/enigma-
data-export/shutdown/enigma-...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/enigma-data-
export/shutdown/enigma-us-gov-opm-salaries-2012.zip)

~~~
maaku
Wow, I should have gone into medicine.

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nzealand
This does not include federal court employees (judges, attorneys...)

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everettForth
"Average 78,673.52 Stand. Deviation 39,191.8525 Max 398,322.00 Min 0.00
Variance 1,536,001,304.3535"

I don't think variance is being calculated correctly

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11001
It is actually correct. Variance is measured in "squared dollars", so it's not
very meaningful in terms of interpretation.

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yogo
Even with a ~40K standard dev I'd say that's a well paid lot.

~~~
genericresponse
You have to remember that most actual employees are white-collar types. Almost
anything commoditizable or blue-collar gets sent to contractors.

Also, let's not forget the cost of living in DC.

~~~
phaus
The percentage of contractors might be somewhat higher, but there are tons of
blue-collar federal positions.

~~~
mcguire
Weirdly, not on this list. In the raw data[1], the top 4 plan/grades are GS
11-14, which account for 40% (~536,000 of 1.35M) of the entries.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6560459](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6560459)

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eli
This data has obviously been public for a while. A site with Senate/House
staff salaries makes the rounds every summer when a new round of Hill interns
realize they can look up how much their friends and bosses make.

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Shivetya
a fun site to play with is at
[http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/](http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/)

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mrcactu5
it doesn't include bonuses

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petsounds
check out the "award bonus" column :)

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avty
As we are about to enter a period of hyperinflation, salary is about to sky
rocket, led by government employees.

