Chart of The Day - Why Not Seek A Sinecure

From Clusterstock

CHART OF THE DAY: How The Government Payroll Replaced Goods-Producing Jobs

In the just-so story of the evolution of our economy, our old manufacturing based economy has been replaced by an innovative knowledge economy.

That's not quite true

In fact, the decline of the jobs in goods producing sectors of the economy--construction, manufacturing, mining and agriculture--has largely been met with an increase in jobs on the government payroll. We've gone from providing jobs in profit-making private industry to providing jobs in profit-eating government work. Toward the end of 2007, the total number of government jobs exceeded the total number of goods producing jobs. Welcome to the government payroll economy.

Another interesting fact

The average salary for a federal government employee is somewhere around $71,000. If that is the average, imagine what the government equivalent is of what a private sector manager or executive earns.

It makes you wonder why you would encourage your kids to get a private sector job when they could get a government job and earn more than they would in the private sector...and not have the risk of getting laid off. And in this economy who wouldn't want a job for life...also known as a sinecure

From Instapundit.com

STIMULUS! Average Federal Government Worker Pay $71,206. “The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal salary data. Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months — and that’s before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.”

And here's an example of a high paying government job

GENEROUS PAY for new Freddie Mac CFO. “The government-controlled mortgage finance company is giving CFO Ross Kari compensation worth as much as $5.5 million. That includes an almost $2 million cash signing bonus and a generous salary that could top $2.3 million.” It’s okay to pay him a lot. He works for the government. “Freddie Mac is not just another company. It’s alive today, and nearly 80 percent owned by the government, only because almost $51 billion in taxpayer funds were pumped into it over the last year. More bailout money also may be needed in the quarters ahead as losses from its troubled mortgages mount.”

Are you aware of any of this? Do you think that having government payroll replace goods producing jobs is good for our economy in the long run? Can this economic trend be changed and does it even matter?