State government salaries - selected jobs Private sector salaries - blue collar, clerical, professional, and executive Salary spreads between organization levels Geographic salary differentials Attitudes of top government officials toward pay and other factors that may influence decisions to join, remain in, or leave government service Finally, the Commission wished to ensure the fullest possible exposure of the data to public review and also wished to ensure its own exposure to comment from the many interested parties. All studies were presented in public hearings. Over 100 organizations and individuals were invited to testify and 24 appeared. Written comments were received from over 100 sources. Over 520 individuals from all three branches incumbents, departees, as well as those who decided not to come to government, were interviewed by the Yankelovich, Skelly and White firm in the study for Dr. Arnold Weber.' In addition, a number of key government officials were asked to provide their views on specific issues in particular, those officials in present and previous administrations who had the recruiting responsibility. 'The reports of Dr. Weber and the firm of Yankelovich, Skelly and White are included in the Commission's staff report under separate cover. The Commission also examined, to its great profit, the report on the Federal pay system prepared in 1975 under the direction of Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, which report contributed strongly to the Commission's decision to consider "total compensation" in the course of its deliberations instead of merely looking at salary levels. Vice President Rockefeller also contributed a substantial and thoughtful statement for the consideration of the Commission.2 In carrying out the work outlined in this report, the Commission was well aware that its legal responsibility is primarily recommending rates of pay to the President, but we were also aware that we met in time of crisis, that the rate of good people leaving the government in the upper grades had become a flood, that partly because of the crisis of confidence in the nation no significant pay raises at all whatever the recommendations of the Quadrennial Commissions - would have been granted for eight years, and we quickly saw that a recommendation for substantial salary increases, unaccompanied by any reference either to the other elements of income or the crisis of confidence, would meet the same fate as did the recommendations in 1974. We did not believe we had been convened to perform an idle act. Mr. President, in the spirit of that belief, and mindful of our legal and moral obligations, the Commission respectfully presents this report. *The full text of the Vice President's statement is presented in the Commission's staff report under separate cover. The Problem - Images and Reality On September 22, 1976, Congress acted to deny a small upward salary adjustment to the top employees of all three branches of the Federal Government, an adjustment which reflected a percentage increase based upon a comparability study with the General Schedule and which would have occured automatically had Congress not voted affirmatively to deny it. The action was hardly justified by the facts. Since 1969, Federal judges, all members of the House and Senate and top officials of the Executive Branch had received only one increase in salary - and that had been 5%. This "freeze" had occurred during a period of sometimes double-digit inflation and regular pay increases for workers in all other parts of society, including government at all levels - State, local and the Federal Civil Service General Schedule. During the time in question - 1969 to 1976 — in which the officials whose pay is the subject of this report received a total 5% increase, average hourly private non-farm earnings increased by 70.1%. The Consumer Price Index for urban wage earners and clerical employees went up nearly as rapidly, by 60.5%. General Schedule Federal Civil Service pay increased on the average during that period by 65.7%, and in the so-called "super grades" GS-16 to 18, by 48.9%. A 1976 survey of executive pay ($30,000 to $65,000) in 318 private companies showed a salary increase during those seven years of 52.5% in all companies and of 58.6% in companies where no bonuses were paid. In fifteen major State governments, in the years from 1969 to 1975, the Governors' pay was increased by 37.7% and that of the top five administrative officials by 41.5%. In general, all the indicators — including those cited above demonstrated an approximate 55% increase in comparable salary rates since 1969 which, allowing for the 5% increase in 1975, would have required a 50% increase in Executive Level salaries by 1976, just in order to provide comparable treatment. The charts on the following pages dramatically illustrate the disparity in treatment at the time the Congress chose to deny a modest 5% increase to the judiciary and Executive Levels and to be sure, to its own members. |