Freeze on Federal Jobs Won’t Reduce Spending

One of the first policy pronouncements by Senator Scott Brown was his assertion that to reduce spending and cut the budget deficit, “we need to put a freeze on federal hires and federal raises because, as you know, federal employees are making twice as much as their private counterparts.’’ If only it were that simple. Civil servants are always an easy punching bag for politicians, but Brown is incorrect about civil service salaries and his call for a hiring and pay freeze is shortsighted. The comparison of overall pay levels is flawed because the federal workforce is older and more educated than its counterpart in the private sector.