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Someone is cooking some books or something.
I was reading about Obama's plan to announce tonight that he is violating the Constitution yet again, and the WSJ had an article on the subject. Leaving aside Obama's blatant violation of the Constitution, and leaving aside the fact that raising the minimum wage is just more feel-good job-killing by the Democrats on their idiotic march toward Cosmic Sameness, this caught my eye:
That just doesn't even come close to passing the sniff test. Nowhere near passing. So I went in search of the data, thinking that there must be some mistake on the part of the WSJ.
It turns out that their statement is indeed correct. The Labor Department claims that there are about 16,000 people who are classified as "public sector - federal" who were "employed wage and salary workers paid hourly rates with earnings at or below the prevailing Federal minimum wage." In 2001, they said it was 20,000. In 2010, it was 33,000, a sky-high jump from 2009, when it was 21,000, which was up from 2008, when it was the same as it was in 2012: 16,000. 15,000 in 2007, 10,000 in 2006, 14,000 in 2005, 19,000 in 2004, 17,000 in 2003, and 22,000 in 2002, the first year that the data is available.
So what's going on? I'm not about to buy that tens of thousands of federal employees (or contractors) are going to work, year after year, for the federal government at or below minimum wage. That just ain't gonna happen. They'll either quit and go work at McDonald's where they're guaranteed to get at least the minimum wage, or else they'll raise hell enough that the feds will make sure that they are paid at least minimum wage (if not a whole lot more).
Bill Moyers points out that the minimum wage doesn't apply to everyone. He's right: jobs that traditionally are based upon tips (most commonly waiting tables) do indeed qualify for lower wages. So perhaps there are tens of thousands of federal food service jobs that don't pay the full minimum wage? Well, no. At least not from what I can tell. There are indeed quite a few federal food service jobs of one sort or another out there: national parks, military bases, that sort of thing. But the lowest wage that I've been able to find for these is $8.30/hour for part-time pub work at the White Sands missile range. Most of these are much higher starting wage offers: $13-$17/hour is much more typical of what I found. Moyers also points to "domestic workers," meaning folks who have a live-in position, and thus generally don't have defined hours as such. So far as I can tell, there is no such position in the federal government, with the exception of a few elite people who live and work in the White House, and one would certainly hope that they get compensated handsomely for their position; regardless, there certainly aren't tens of thousands of those.
So where are all of these "at or below minimum wage" federal jobs? I haven't found a one yet. It would certainly appear that there's some manner of some fairly serious weaseling going on here. I can only guess that there are probably some people in salaried positions whose hours make it such that they might not get the minimum wage on average or in a particular day or week. Maybe. The BLS does point out that this is based upon a household survey, so I suppose it's entirely possible that there are a whole lot of federal workers who are lying. Absent either of these, I think that there pretty much has to be someone weasel-wording this in some fashion in order to "create" a bunch of people who are "at or below the minimum wage."
Whatever it is, something fishy is going on here.
I was reading about Obama's plan to announce tonight that he is violating the Constitution yet again, and the WSJ had an article on the subject. Leaving aside Obama's blatant violation of the Constitution, and leaving aside the fact that raising the minimum wage is just more feel-good job-killing by the Democrats on their idiotic march toward Cosmic Sameness, this caught my eye:
The executive order would raise the minimum wage for workers on new federal contracts to $10.10 an hour, according to a fact sheet from a White House official. It said Mr. Obama would announce the new policy in his speech Tuesday, which is scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. Eastern Time.
The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, and hasn't been raised since July 2009. About 16,000 federal employees were paid at or below minimum wage in 2012, according to the Labor Department. The agency doesn't specify how many employees were government contractors.
The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, and hasn't been raised since July 2009. About 16,000 federal employees were paid at or below minimum wage in 2012, according to the Labor Department. The agency doesn't specify how many employees were government contractors.
That just doesn't even come close to passing the sniff test. Nowhere near passing. So I went in search of the data, thinking that there must be some mistake on the part of the WSJ.
It turns out that their statement is indeed correct. The Labor Department claims that there are about 16,000 people who are classified as "public sector - federal" who were "employed wage and salary workers paid hourly rates with earnings at or below the prevailing Federal minimum wage." In 2001, they said it was 20,000. In 2010, it was 33,000, a sky-high jump from 2009, when it was 21,000, which was up from 2008, when it was the same as it was in 2012: 16,000. 15,000 in 2007, 10,000 in 2006, 14,000 in 2005, 19,000 in 2004, 17,000 in 2003, and 22,000 in 2002, the first year that the data is available.
So what's going on? I'm not about to buy that tens of thousands of federal employees (or contractors) are going to work, year after year, for the federal government at or below minimum wage. That just ain't gonna happen. They'll either quit and go work at McDonald's where they're guaranteed to get at least the minimum wage, or else they'll raise hell enough that the feds will make sure that they are paid at least minimum wage (if not a whole lot more).
Bill Moyers points out that the minimum wage doesn't apply to everyone. He's right: jobs that traditionally are based upon tips (most commonly waiting tables) do indeed qualify for lower wages. So perhaps there are tens of thousands of federal food service jobs that don't pay the full minimum wage? Well, no. At least not from what I can tell. There are indeed quite a few federal food service jobs of one sort or another out there: national parks, military bases, that sort of thing. But the lowest wage that I've been able to find for these is $8.30/hour for part-time pub work at the White Sands missile range. Most of these are much higher starting wage offers: $13-$17/hour is much more typical of what I found. Moyers also points to "domestic workers," meaning folks who have a live-in position, and thus generally don't have defined hours as such. So far as I can tell, there is no such position in the federal government, with the exception of a few elite people who live and work in the White House, and one would certainly hope that they get compensated handsomely for their position; regardless, there certainly aren't tens of thousands of those.
So where are all of these "at or below minimum wage" federal jobs? I haven't found a one yet. It would certainly appear that there's some manner of some fairly serious weaseling going on here. I can only guess that there are probably some people in salaried positions whose hours make it such that they might not get the minimum wage on average or in a particular day or week. Maybe. The BLS does point out that this is based upon a household survey, so I suppose it's entirely possible that there are a whole lot of federal workers who are lying. Absent either of these, I think that there pretty much has to be someone weasel-wording this in some fashion in order to "create" a bunch of people who are "at or below the minimum wage."
Whatever it is, something fishy is going on here.
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