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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 12, 1963)
MEDFORD MAIL TRIBUNE. MEDFORD. OREGON THURSDAY. SEPTEMBER 12. 1963 Your Money's Worth By SYLVIA PORTER Copyright, Hall Syndicate, Inc. FEDERAL VERSUS PRIVATE PAY SCALES If you're seeking work as a typist or an office boy, a stenogra pher or an office manager, you'll be much better off financially now if you can get a job with the federal government rather than with private industry. In fact, as of Jan. 1, the average salary the federal government will pay employees in such jobs as these will run hundreds a year above the average private business will pay and, in addition, your fringe benefits in many instances will be far more liberal too. In the middle-upper brackets, of course, the gap between what industry pays and Uncle Sam pays is and will remain immense. As a 12-member presidential panel has just reported to the nation, salaries of top government aooointees "cannot be fixed meaning fully at rates comparable with the higher ranges of executive compensation in business and industry," for the average execu tive pay ranges from $53,000 in life insurance companies to $91,000 in manufacturing companies. This is why the White House finds recruiting top-notch men from industry so difficult and why many who do accept posts resign after a relatively short time. This is why the panel, headed by Clarence B. Randall, urged legislation that would double the annual salaries of cabinet members, sharply increase the pay of congressmen, Supreme Court Justices and others. But while the salary scale at the top is tilted dramatically in favor of private industry, the scale in an increasing number of jobs lower down is being tilted more and more in favor of the government employee. For instance, when the next round of pay hikes goes into effect Jan. 1, the average federal pay per year for a beginner typist will be $3,980, at least $600 more than private business pays. The average for an office boy will be $3,746 a year, at least $500 more than private business pays. The average for an office manager will be $7,718, at least $400 more than he'd get as man ager of a small private office. The average for a general stenogra pher will be $4,344, at least $200 above the average private scale. The average for a top-grade accountant will be $10,681, at least $100 above the average industry level. Cash pay is only part of the story. A federal employee with 15 years or more on the payroll gets an annual vacation of more than five weeks, plus eight paid holidays, plus 13 days of "sick leave" a year. He can accumulate unused "sick leave" indefi nitely from year to year and carry over up to 30 days of unused vacation into a new year. He is entitled to group insurance, for which the government foots one-third of the cost, and a major retirement pension. To this pension, he contributes 6'4 per cent of his salary each year and the federal government contributes an equal 6'4 per cent. These are attractive fringe benefits indeed. The economic significance of this story Is much greater than you may suspect. The federal government alone employs 2.5 million civilians today, up 8 per cent since 1955, and the workers spread out into every state. For every federal gov ernment worker in Washington. D.C., there are eight outside the District of Columbia and there are as many federal em ployees in California as in metropolitan Washington. A "most arresting development," as the Chase Manhattan Bank put it in a recent study, is the uninterrupted climb in em ployment in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, "while it's pa tron, the farm population, has taken a precipitous fall." The Agriculture department now has around one jobholder for every 60 persons on the farm, against a ratio of one to 118 in 1950 and of one to 341 in 1933. Contrary to the widespread impression, employment in the Defense department actually has been falling steadily since the Korean war, now accounts for 41 per cent of all federal workers, compared with 47 per cent in 1955. When millions of workers the country over get pay hikes simultaneously, that's a prop to the economy and that's what will happen Jan. 1. Working for the federal government always has had special attractions power, prestige, security, and even in seemingly minor jobs, often extraordinary excitement. But better pay and benefits too? That's really turning the scale upside down. Coos Prisoner Flees Penitentiary Annex SALEM (UPI) Perrv Lerov Carver, 47, fled the penitentiary annex about 1:30 p.m. Wednes day, Warden Clarence T. Glad den reported. Carver was sentenced from COOS COUntV to a thrpp vpar term on a charge of forgery by cnecK writing. He entered the prison on Feb. 21 Of this Vear. anri was (pane ferred to the annex on June 30. SEEK CLOSER TIES ALGIERS, Algeria (UPI) -Communist China and Algeria signed agreements Wednesday on cooperation in the fields of culture, information, arts and sports. Capitol Memo Oregonians Have Record of Defeat For Tax Measures By ZAN STARK SALEM (UPI) If Oregonians follow the pattern they have set, the 1963 legislature's $60 million t a x increase measure will be defeated at the Oct. 15 special election. Only once in Oregon history h a s a tax bill been salvaged after its referral to 1 4, come tax measure was upheld, a review of Oregon voting statis tics shows. Next month's election will be the fourth single-issue statewide election in the state's history. The first was on June 2, 1902, when the initiative and referen dum were adopted 62,024 to 5.668. Voters Change Minds The second was Nov. 6. 1923, when the only item on the bal lot was an income tax act that the people. That I had been referred by the legis- surk was at uie Nov. lature. I he measure squeezed 1952 and 19o6 cigarette tax meas 1950, election when an in- by 58,647 to 58,131 a 516 vote urcs were rejected, and in 1960 victory margin. The voters turn ed it down a year later, how ever. The third was on May 20, 1960, when the people voted against salary hikes for state legislators. There's a long list of defeats of measures that were referred by the people. In 1926 both an income and cigarette tax were defeated; in 1934 a school relief sales tax was turned down: in 1942, 1947, an income tax measure was killed. Curb Defeated The legislature, hoping to curb referral of unpopular tax meas ures by the people, once pro posed a constitutional change which would have allowed the emergency clause to be applied to revenue bills. The people re jected that idea 487,550 to 175, 932 in 1956. A review of the records show Oregonians have never initiated a sales or cigarette tax measure, although they have initiated some other revenue plans such measure to provide monthly pay for elderly persons from a gross income tax. This was de feated at the 1944 election. Cigarette tax proposals from various sources have been voted down by the people six times, in 1926, 1942, 1945, 1947, 1952 and 1956. Sales tax measures have met defeat five times, in 1933, 1934, 1936, 1944 and 1947. Seven income tax measures have been rejected, two in 1926, and one each in 1924, 1927, 1928, 1932 and 1960. THE DANMOORE HOTEL 1217 SW Morriion St. PORTLAND, OREGON All transient guests. All those who come, return. Rates not high, not low. Free garage, new location ' block from hotel. Open until 10 P.m. TV's and radios. Reputation for cleanliness. 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