Lies, damn lies, and the Goldwater Institute

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The lobbyists from the Golwater Institute will testify on Thursday about how public sector employees are paid more than their private sector counterparts. This is something that FAUX News Fraudcasting has been laying the groundwork for since early 2011. This claim has been refuted by several studies over the past year.

Just last week, the Arizona Republic reported Study compares pay, benefits of workers in Phoenix sectors:

A study Phoenix commissioned to settle disputes over public-employee compensation shows city workers earn slightly more in total pay and benefits than a combined average of competitive peers in both the public and private sectors.

But when benefits are stripped from the equation, Phoenix workers make far less in base pay compared with private sector entities and about the same as local public-sector peers.

The findings are contained in a study from the Segal Group that the Phoenix City Council will review today. Phoenix paid $430,000 for the 300-plus page report, and there is already disagreement about what the report says.

* * *

The study, released recently, based its findings on data averaging information from both the private and public sector. Cities used in the study for comparison included San Diego, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Houston.

Locally, most major cities in Maricopa County were included along with data on state employees. Private-sector information came from published databases and a survey of seven local companies or utilities.

The study shows Phoenix is roughly competitive with the public sector and 19 percentage points below market compared with the private sector when it comes to base salary. The report based its findings on the city's current labor contracts, which included a 1 percent wage cut that has been in place for two consecutive fiscal years.

[Compared with the private sector alone, total compensation for Phoenix employees is barely at market.]

"The citizens of Phoenix should realize that they're getting a lot of bang for their buck because we're getting 19 percent below the private sector," said Frank Piccioli, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 2960. "I hope that shuts up people who have misrepresented the facts."

The difference in compensation levels comes down to negotiated benefits. Much of the private sector has eliminated employee benefits. Because the private sector no longer offers enployee benefits, no one should have employee benefits? This is a race to the bottom argument. The private sector should restore employee benefits to improve wages that have been stagnant since 1973 (adjusted for inflation).

Also this week the Cogressional Budget Office issued a new CBO study (PDF) comparing compensation for federal and private sector workers. Daily Kos: Federal workers out-earn private sector ones … at the low end. At the high end, they earn less:

[W]hile the CBO does find that federal workers, on average, earn more in wages and benefits than similar private sector workers, that's not the important story it tells.

Look at the graph at the right. It compares federal and private sector wages and benefits for workers at different levels of education. Federal workers with a high school diploma or some college earn more in wages and benefits than private sector workers. For workers with bachelor's degrees, wages are just about tied, but federal workers have better benefits. By the time you get to a master's degree, private sector workers are earning slightly more in wages, though their benefits still fall short. Workers with a professional degree or doctorate get just about the same amount of benefits in the private sector and the federal government—but those in the private sector make substantially more in wages. So while, overall, the government pays 16 percent more in total compensation than the private sector would for comparable workers, that's stratified. The government pays 36 percent more to workers with a high school diploma or less, and 18 percent less to workers with a professional degree or doctorate.

In other words, Tea-Publican outrage about "overpaid" federal workers is about the fact that the compensation floor isn't as low as they want it to be. Tea-Publicans are the low wage party. This is why they oppose minimum wage laws and even child labor laws.

UPDATE: Pete Gorraiz, President of the United Phoenix Fire Fighters Association, has this guest opinion in the Arizona Republic on Thursday. Gorraiz: Firefighters keep community in mind:

For the past two years, Phoenix firefighters and other city employees have been hit hard by false accusations that we're getting rich at taxpayers' expense. Those lies cut deep, since they came after city employees saved Phoenix $104 million by agreeing to a voluntary 3.2 percent pay cut in each of the past two years.

Now the truth is out in the form of an independent, comprehensive study of Phoenix city salaries. The City of Phoenix 2011 Total Compensation Study was conducted by Washington-based the Segal Company at a cost of more than $430,000.

The highlights?

When it comes to base pay, Phoenix is competitive with other Valley city governments — smack in the middle of the benchmark cities surveyed. Half make more and half make less than Phoenix city employees. At the same time, Phoenix workers' base pay is 19 percent lower than comparable private-sector employers. The study's authors also measured city workers' benefits.

"Overall, we found the city of Phoenix's benefits programs are consistent with employers in the local area and nationwide, and are most similar to other public-sector employers."