Federal pay can’t compete

I speak in defense of federal employees. Hired by the U.S. Forest Service in 1968, I had a decent-paying job for a small lumber-dependent town. However, for most of my long career, private-sector pay scales outpaced government pay for like work by 20 to 30 percent consistently.

The annual cost of living allowances barely covered health premium increases; not always. Even decent benefits didn’t make enough difference because most private companies provided very good benefits.

That long-lived pay disparity put cream-of-the-crop employees in private-sector jobs. Why not? Salaries were better.

I must state that most federal employees I was privileged to work with were intelligent, hard-working people, deserving of every penny earned. Yet now one sometimes wonders how a particular individual managed to get hired by the government. Well, they were likely representative of all who applied for the job, the private sector having scooped up the top, smartest people.

Like most taxpayers, I object to large six-figure federal or private-sector salaries. However, the majority of employees, sitting behind desks or working in the field, aren’t getting large paychecks. Federal pay scales haven’t skyrocketed so much as private industry has fallen on its face.

Janice Stoeser

Newman Lake