Government Jobs

Traditionally, people sought government employment for job stability and benefits and traded that for a pay scale about 15% less than private business.
In the past 10 years, government employees have found that contracts have been renegotiated resulting in givebacks, unpaid furlough days to help balance budgets and large-scale layoffs.
New employees are often hired with different benefits and pension schemes than long term employees,
Government work still pays less than the private sector with the major exception of education. A public school teacher will earn far more and have much greater benefits that a teacher in a private school or Yeshiva.
In our community a teacher holding a Master’s Degree and 18 years of service (top of the contract scale) has a base pay of $92,000 per 186 workday year. This is not even close to the top pay rates here in Fairfield County.

At the other extreme, town janitors start at $11.35 per hour while the local McDonald’s pays 18 year old part time beginning workers $13.25 and help spay for college after 9 months employment.

I am painfully aware of local pay rates and benefits, as I’m a member of our Town Council and we have finally passed out budget which starts the fiscal year beginning July 1. New hires in management no longer are part of the Town Pension plan, instead they are forced into a defined benefit plan that is portable like a 401K. Unions lost their previous medical plans and are forced into the state employees plan which costs the employee more out of pocket and has less coverage. Except for classroom teachers and police, vacancies are not being filled…we still don’t know what funding form the State will be for the coming year, as they have not passed a budget in Hartford. We do not have municipal fire service, but volunteer fire companies.

While  Trump and his chevrah run around disparaging government employees and “unelected bureacrats” and using them to scapegoat all of the government’s problems, the vast majority are dedicated workers who have a public service ethic and really are committed to their work. Studies show that compensation is slightly above market at the lower wage levels but substantially below market at the higher levels where most government employees could be earning substantially more for doing equivalent work in the private sector. While there needs to be more efficient hiring and firing practices, the system overall works reasonably well. Also, the number of federal employees is actually lower today than 20 years ago, notwithstanding an enormous increase in federal agency responsibilities. If anyone thinks it would be cheaper to hire a private contractor to do the work of a Department of Defense analyst, just look at the few studies that have examined so called “outsourcing” programs.

It’s not *that* hard to fire a government employee, though there is a bit of red tape; bosses just don’t have the guts to do it when they should, just as commonly happens in the private sector.

Government employees have good job security unless it is a temp job, of which there are many.

Salary depends on job and level of government and for states and localities, the wealth and living expenses of the area.

Government employment may be more compatible with being frum and having good family/life/Torah balance, since most government employees work a straight 8 hour day with no overtime or being texted at all hours.

Gadolhadorah, the problem is that they are dedicated to piling regs on the people. A number of books have been written about how everyone in the US in violation of some obscure law or reg. At least legislators are accountable to the people but regulators work in ivory towers. During the Obama administration the Feds alone added 20,642 new ones! Meanwhile, Netanyahu and Shaked are working to deregulate the Israeli economy and stop the flood of new private bills.

Insofar as IT fields in NYC government (because that’s what I know), I’d recommend them but only after careful consideration of an individual agency’s system. Most city agencies are somewhat behind the private sector in technology. However, this can vary. Also, yes, you will be paid less then in the private sector. However, as a working mom who’s done both, I am grateful everyday for my city job. I leave work at the end of the 8 hour day, and it rarely follows me home. If I elect to work later, such as when we’re doing an implementation, I get comp time. If you are Certified in your field (such as DBA), you will get paid more. Civil service computer exams were given this year, but the results have not been released yet. There are a lot of people in my shop’s IT who are making 100k+. And I don’t miss the pressure of the private sector at all.

Because technology is constantly advancing. A while back I was offered a position in a different agency that was still running their databases in DBase, a long obsolete program. We geeky people who go for IT always want to stay current. Especially important for those who may want to reenter the private sector. Also because as new technologies come into play and younger people who are fluent in those skills are hired, you don’t want to end up sitting around gathering dust. At least I wouldn’t.

Regarding health insurance, NYC employees can have great medical, dental, hospital, and vision coverage without premiums and only minimal deductibles and copays while NYS employees have to pay premiums and higher deductibles and copays for slightly less extensive coverage.

Job security depends a lot on your color.

Whether a government job pays better than the private sector depends on the nature of the job, and how what looks at fringe benefits. In general, professionals are paid less than the private sector, but often have better benefits and working conditions (excellent medical care, secure retirement benefits, often a ban on unpaid overtime). Shabbos is much less likely to be a problem working for the government than working for a large employer in the private sector (as one as one avoids jobs that inherently require work on Saturday such as police, medical, etc.). In most government service, there is great job security even one is incompetent. Discrimination is not a problem, at least in civil service (patronage jobs are more like private sector).

For non-professional jobs, the government tends to overpay. Thus the government rarely has problems recruiting clerks and janitors, but often has a problem recruiting professionals.

Note that there is never an “upside” financially in government unless you are a crook. When you hear of someone who get rich while working for the government, assume they either had a side business or were corrupt. That’s especially true of those with political jobs (appointed as patronage, rather than merit selected).

Hiring takes several forms. The standard is take a civil service exam and get appointed (what they call “called off a list”).

City jobs are always listed on the official NYC website. Sorry, no links. You can start your search there. Once you’re in the listings, you’ll see that it has a lot of filters such as managerial, FT, PT, locations etc.

Being hired as a provisional means, while you get the same civil service benefits, you’re not protected in the event of layoffs in the same way civil service employees are. But layoffs haven’t happened in a very long time, so I wouldn’t make that a criteria. BTW, new hires are enrolled in a Tier 6 pension plan which is a long distance from the famous NYC pensions our parents generation had. Also, the teacher’s union has a better pension as well. But the city does offer a pre-tax deferred comp option, which is a 457 plan.

At the upper managerial levels you’re more likely to find the political appointees. But there often is a lot of turnover at that level every time we get a new mayor. But if you’re that “connected”, you should be able to land on your feet if you are laid off.

There is a centralized job listing website managed by OPM for most federal agencies (except for certain SES jobs, and excepted service jobs along with schedule C political slots) ….the hiring process has gotten somewhat better but still plan on at least 3 or 4 months and sometimes 6 months to a year. There are hiring preferences for veterans that trump (excuse the expression) merit based hiring decisions.

Joseph, I could be wrong on this one, but we know that if a worker slacks off on a job it’s as though they were stealing from their boss. In this case “boss” is the taxpapers, which is us. One of the reasons my city IT department is considered one of the best in the city in terms of what we do and accomplish is that it’s made up of people who care about their work in much the same way as the private sector. In fact, some people have left here, gone into the private sector and then come back (including our CIO). The few people who just sit around are not at all respected by their coworkers.

Akuperma some yeshivot (including those in Israel for English-speakers) offer recognized BAs in Talmudic Literature. I now a rav who has a nephew who got into law school with one plus, of course, a high grade on the LSAT.

Joseph, even if slacking employees don’t get fired, their supervisor can make them want to quit.

If they have such thick skin that the sup’s not succeeding in making their lives miserable, chances are they are already supervisors themselves, and at that level, yeah, they’ll fire you for slacking off.