I read somewhere that Postal workers make about $50k a year. It is an honest and respectable profession. I do not think there is a age limit to start. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now.

It's also excellent as an addition to any military service you might have under your belt, since the fed retirement is cumulative with that...so, you might only need a few years of pounding the pavement or sorting before you can sit at home and quilt all day :D

UPS pays a lot better.

A guy on my softball team was an accountant for 10 years and decided he hated it and started a route for UPS. Lost 30 pounds and is in great shape now. I think he makes about $70k.

Plus those trucks have the largest sunroof in the history of mass transit.

Plus, from what I've seen on the internet, delivering packages leads to lots of sex with lonely housewives. If it's on the internet, it must be true.

I think USPS pays about $40k to start. UPS drivers start about the same, but can make into the $70k range.

It's all about the benefits. You are also looking at base pay rates, not actual realized income.

I have a buddy that works for the city, his base pay is $55k. He actually clears over $80k.

He reties at 25 years with 100% of his retire date income till death (read that again).

He also gets a 401k style retirement account w/ match.

He also gets full family medical until he's 65.

He's works less than 4 days a week on average.

I'm just saying that it's not a bad gig at all and if you look at the retirement as income you can basically double the wages.

Many towns, counties and states are going to be bankrupted by all this. It is going to get ugly, with a big backlash brewing.

It used to be public service was less money but more stability. Now they get both, the private sector can't match it. And taxpayers can't afford it.

I agree.

USPS is #83 in the global 100.

It's only some parts of the public sector...

Also, compare employment numbers in these fields between today, and maybe 30 years ago. Even 10 years ago. The numbers are WAY down, so they need to give higher pay and bennies to keep at a skeleton level.

??? Are you saying government employment is down?

Yes, in some sectors. Front page of the paper yesterday:
http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=2008_4595896
(it's far too long to paste here)

That didn't say anything about employment being down just that they are working a lot of overtime. I read something the other day that said local government employment was at all time highs and accelerating.

I don't think it's a lack of people, just increased mandates/people gaming the system.

I'll see if I can find it.

"The HPD, which has placed a heavy focus on recruiting to increase the ranks, spent about $45 million on overtime, records show. Officials there plan to spend about $51 million over the next 12 months."

"'Unlike the private sector, the public sector has to leverage its limited work force by extending it through the use of overtime,' said Joe Fenninger, HPD's deputy director for finance."

"'We've had trouble filling all the positions,' Abbott said. 'Because we could not fill them all, we used a lot of overtime."'

"But Richard Newby, president of the Harris County Deputies Organization, said the staffing problems the figures reflect are taking a toll on deputies. He said some were being forced to work more than one extra shift a week, if not more.
'The biggest thing that's affecting morale is the staffing issue,' he said. 'It's getting tiring. We're having forced overtime, because we just don't have the bodies."'

Again, I don't see even a vague reference to actual employment numbers being down only that they have more work than they can handle. Are you extrapolating that duties are static thus employment numbers must be down vs duties being dynamic and the workload has increased?

Actually, I was simply saying that there are fewer workers now than before, and they're being overworked, so having to pay them more to keep them seems like the logical solution for public sector employers. I'm not really going any deeper than that...mostly a response to The Gaijin who feels that the public sector employees are making too much money these days. Sure, they might be, but with fewer of them, the total payroll isn't much different.

OK, but you haven't demonstrated that there are fewer of them, which is all I was saying.

The beast is always growing and perhaps public employment hasn't quite kept up w/ the beast but I don't believe there are indeed "fewer of them".

I interpret that as, they can't find enough people for the jobs, so the current employees are forced to work overtime. One quote is that they are having trouble filling positions. Wait, I thought the economy was failing, there were no jobs to be had, and the sky is falling. It's almost as if somebody is stretching the truth.;)

There could be many reasons govt, municipal, state employment is down. Beyond budget cutbacks, for one, working for The Man just isn't sexy. When I was a kid, everyone wanted to be a lawyer, doctor or work in "the industry." So, maybe what we're now seeing are the results of the last twenty or so years of people going for sexy jobs rather than boring service jobs.

Also, in L.A., there's huge outsourcing for situations such as street repair or building of roads. It used to be The City of L.A. did all that themselves, IIRC.

Here's what I think: in the future in the U.S., service-oriented jobs will be the jobs to get. Sure, the initial pay may not be great, but the benefits in some cases more than make up for the pay. Maybe these are the new sexy jobs.