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Articles | OPM Director Confronts Washington Times Criticism of Federal Employee Pay Bonanza
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OPM Director Confronts Washington Times' Criticism of Federal Employee Pay "Bonanza"
March 15, 2010
The Washington Times published an editorial last Friday, criticizing this
year's pay raise for federal employees as well as hiring bonuses and other
compensation incentives offered during a recession.
The Times article, headlined "Federal bonus bonanza," opened
with: "[t]he only thing that seems to be growing during the current economic
downturn is the government, and that's cause for alarm. While families and
businesses struggle to make ends meet, the ranks of federal workers swell -- as
does their compensation. It's time for the feds to start making the same
financial sacrifices as the rest of us."
But just hours later, the Director of the Office of Personnel Management
(OPM), John Berry, fired back regarding the Times editorial during an interview with FederalNewsRadio.com.
Berry pointed out, "[t]he first line in the [Times] editorial says that the
federal government is growing during this [economic] downturn and it's a cause
for alarm. . . . That's what the editorial says, here are the facts. There will
be 2.1 million full time federal employees in this year. That is less than there
were in the federal government when Lyndon Johnson was president in 1967. If you
compare the growth in the size of our country, there are over 100 million more
Americans today that those workers are serving."
FederalNewsRadio.com also noted that Berry said he is extremely upset about a
part of the article that implied that federal employees do little other than sit
at their desks all day.
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