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.
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OLD BONES FOUND University of Washington faculty mem
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bones and a tooth which were dug up at an excavation for a
new building at Seattle. The bones are believed to be from
10.000 to a million years old and are thought to be those of a
mature mammoth, which was several times the size of the
modern elephant. (UPI)
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