Fed. Govt.: President George Bush Issues 2008 Federal Employees’ Pay Schedule; Federal Judges Receive COLA

President George Bush issued Executive Order 13454, which provides the pay schedule for federal employees for 2008. The recent appropriations bill provided for cost of living adjustments for several classes of federal employees.

One group is the one for federal judiciary (see schedule 7 of Executive Order 13454) (amounts in chart are in dollars).

Judicial position	Annual Salary in 2007	Annual Salary in 2008	% Increase
Chief Justice of the U.S.	212,100	217,400	2.5
Sup. Ct. Associate Justices	203,000	208,100	2.5
Circuit Judges	175,100	179,500	2.5
District Judges	165,200	169,300	2.5
Judges of Int’l Trade Court	165,200	169,300	2.5

 

Also in Executive Order 13454, Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S Senate will receive $169,300 in 2008, an increase from $165,200 in 2007.

Contrary to Chief Justice John Roberts, I feel that the federal judicary is already well compensated (click on the federal judiciary tag in the right column for my previous posts on the federal judiciary pay issue).

Fed. Judiciary: Leslie Southwick Receives Seat on Fifth Circuit Court

The New York Times (link) reported that Leslie Southwick’s nomination to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals was confirmed by the Senate (59-38).

Representative Barbara Lee (link) issued a press release (link) criticizing Southwick’s confirmation.

Thank you Justice Ginsburg

Regarding the decision in a pay discrimination case: Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., Inc., No. 05-1074 (5/29/07):

You (and your three colleagues: Justices Stevens, Souter, and Breyer) did your best.

In our view, the court does not comprehend, or is indifferent to, the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay discrimination, she [Justice Ginsburg] said.

In short, the law needs changing because it is difficult to know that one is being paid less than a similarly situated employee of another gender.

Pay disparities often occur, as they did in Ledbetter’s case, in small increments; only over time is there strong cause to suspect that discrimination is at work, she [Justice Ginsburg] wrote.

The majority opinion, authored by Justice Samuel Alito, encourages an adversarial employment relationship (one a typical employee with bills to pay cannot afford) because one would have to be persistently suspicious that their employers are committing pay discrimination against them in order to satisfy the 180 day deadline.

[Lilly] Ledbetter’s policy arguments for giving special treatment to pay claims find no support in the statute and are inconsistent with our precedents. We apply the statute as written, and this means that any unlawful employment practice, including those involving compensation, must be presented to the EEOC [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] within the period prescribed by statute.

Pay for Performance?

Philosopher Sin Yu in the third or fourth century stated that “an imperial rater of nine grades seldom rates men according to their merits, but always according to his likes and dislikes.”

While advocates always tout the benefits of “pay for performance” plans for the employee workforce, employees experience the negatives of the “pay for performance” plans.

Given the inherent subjectivity of performance reviews, absent consistent work by management to ensure fairness, “pay for performance” plans are destined for failure.

The GAO, in the end, decided to not give pay raises to about 300 analysts and specialists in January 2006. The agency also split a “pay band,” or salary range, in two and restructured salary caps for many employees. Dozens of GAO employees complained that the new pay system had not been implemented fairly.