Come on did I call it a pile of shit? I just read it and it seems to play with some numbers. Saying "the biggest pay hikes have gone to employees who have been with the government for 15 to 24 years. Since 2005, average salaries for this group climbed 25% compared with a 9% inflation rate." Probably doesn't paint the entire picture in my opinion. People getting close to the top a pay scale, private or public tend to get larger increases.
Look at the portion you highlighted-
Quote:
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While the rest of America has been dealing with high unemployment and stagnant wages, at least one sector of the economy can thank Barack Obama and Democrats for boom times, and no, it’s not the protest sign design industry. USA Today reports that federal employee wages have skyrocketed over the last five years, with the number of federal workers making $150,000 or more a year has increased fivefold during that time. The number has doubled in the 22 months since Obama took office (via The New Editor):
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By reading that it seems like "Wow! Obama has doubled the number in 22 months!" But read it more carefully and the picture becomes more clear. Kind of skips, certainly doesn't mention by name, that it tripled under the previous 50 months with Bush. Just that it increased fivefold over the past five years and you can thank "Barack Obama and Democrats." Seems like we should be, even with this writers numbers, thanking Bush and the GOP even more so.
Plus it doesn't really say what these newly well to do folks were making prior to passing the 150K mark. If, again, they were making 147k I would think this wouldn't be big news.
Articles written like this make me question their honesty.
Edit-
Ok now my math is messed up too. That should be 36 months of Bush not 50. Sorry.
---------- Post added at 07:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:16 PM ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru
There's a difference between stating "soared tenfold" and "increased to 3.9%." (Yes, ten times a fraction of a percent.)
Going from 9 to 900 or so out of over 25,000 employees (or whatever the number is) isn't quite "soaring," especially when you consider that the federal government has increased the amount of lower-cost labour they outsource to the private sector.
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Anytime you take an arbitrary number like 150K and use it as your baseline it's pretty easy to paint a less then realistic picture. What if you used dollars per hour? You could say after "X" date the number of people making more then 7.50 an hour increased 20,000%. You don't have to mention that minimum wage went from $7.35 to $7.55 on that day. You'd still be telling the truth, just omitting a major factor.