Those entitled Federal workers with all of those benefits

[CountAllVotes]

out there.

I know a lot about Federal employment.

I should!

I wasted over 10 years of my life working an assortment of low-wage jobs for them. The first one I had out of high school as a GS-2. Pay was a whopping $5992.00/per annum or roughly $600.00 a month.

I worked in some of the worst parts of town, traveling 1-1/2 hrs. each way for my job on a bus!

It had benefits yes, but I could not afford the good benefits on my lowly wages so I took the cheapest thing I could get for heath care which was Kaiser Permanente at that time (1975). Dental insurance? What's that?

So, on and on I worked, finally at the VA. I noted the employees working with me were employed by a teaching hospital and with a lot of effort, I was hired by this new employer which offered far better benefits, pay and I was now paying into FICA, not FERP (Federal Employees Retirement Plan).

When I left the Federal job I was now a G5-5 , making about $1700/month some ten years later. It was a nowhere job and the benefits were a joke. After 3 years of permanent full-time work I qualified for 6 hrs. of vacation pay every two weeks.

What I did not realize is that I was paying into THEIR pension system, not Social Security.

To make a long story short, I became disabled in 1995. When I went to apply for disability benefits, all of those years I worked for the Fed were worth NOTHING. NOTHING AT ALL! They gave me my pension contributions when I left and it was about $6,000.00, most of which went toward the purchase of a car, something I did not have.

So, the next time you consider the idea that Federal employees are an overpaid, useless lot, please again. Most of them are busting their asses doing jobs that are often not appreciated by others and they don't make a whole hell of a lot.

Sure there are exceptions, but the commoner is just that and will never be anything more, a commoner with nowhere to go in the Federal employment system that I once knew.

As a side note, my mother was a retired Federal employee that was demoted to a mail room clerk when she was old. After 20 years she retired and received less than $800 a month as a pension and being she did not pay much into Social Security during her lifetime working so she received about $200 a month. When my father died, the rule of law at that time was that as a retired Federal employee, she was not allowed to collect my late father's Social Security benefits!

Twenty years is a long time to work in a nothing job and gee, these are the types of results we see in the end, the kind of results you never read nor hear about.

Well now you have.

CountAllVotes

[KT2000]

1. gop lives on resentment

and they share it with their sheep - knowing they are not even telling the truth. They are also not mentioning the fact that contractors, and businesses downstream are losing their income too. Will the daycare keep the slot open for kids whose parents cannot pay until this is over? Will contractors work knowing they will never get paid? Will cars be repossessed and sold off to satisfy the banks?
This is a mess and Coulter is just as clueless as tRump. Actually on the spot on MSNBC, she looked a bit worn out and she sounded brittle.

[CountAllVotes]

3. If this had happened to me when I worked for them ...

This shutdown would have bankrupted me quickly.

Apt. rent was $185. a month leaving me $185. a month to live on!

I'd be in the food stamp line by now!

[KT2000]

6. absolutely!

when I worked for the fed, most of the people in the office were lower paid workers with supervisors who were paid a bit more. I never had extra money and believe me, I didn't buy clothes or any other extravagance. I would bet that federal workers without children would not qualify for food stamps with the stricter rules now.

[50 Shades Of Blue]

2. K & R from a retired Federal employee!

I can't complain about my government career, it was good to me - but I worked my ass off, too. Most of my co-workers were as equally dedicated to giving taxpayers' their money's worth.

[BigmanPigman]

4. That is what happens to teachers in CA.

We pay into a state pension, not into Social Security. Since I became a teacher in my 30s and had changed careers I would not see 90% of the money I already had paid into SS my whole life until then even though I had enough earned credits to collect. CA is a SS Offset state which means I am left with no SS and only my pension. I got sick all the time and eventually had to stop teaching and got even more illnesses and had collect disability through the state teachers system since I am under 65. Teachers do not make much money, probably the same as you in your Fed govt job even though it is a state govt job. And we do not collect double and triple pensions like many in govt jobs do.

[CountAllVotes]

5. Yes, I saw many "double dippers" so to speak

Many were retired military that went on to secure a civilian job after they retired.


Nice for some but a sick game for those like myself.

Had I only known!

Working for all those years and I receive less than many get on SSI here in California.

Something is rotten as all hell IMO.

I worked, and many many years, and for what?