At every level from the bureaucracy to Congress, the United States government is weighed down by a seniority system that privileges people who have been around the longest over the most capable.
Repeal the 17th amendment! Restore the spoils system.
The spoils system was a check/balance against permanent mediocrity. Government jobs should be insured (parachutes provided), but they should not be assured (we can’t get rid of you). The goal of each administration should be to purge the incompetent/disruptive, keep the able, and put in place the loyalists. The people who stay, stay because they are able to be sieved through the upsets. For those, each administration becomes a renegotiation opportunity for promotion.
Ultimately, game theory will win the day on the spoils system.
I agree that in a high-performing, elite team, there's a good overlap between the "favorites and protégés" and "high performers." However, in a low-performing unit or branch, the favorites might be "drinking buddies of manager" or "college buddies of leader."
Regarding performance-based promotion, how do you propose that the US public service do this fairly? One risk is that US managers might give the highest performance ratings to their favorites and protégés--who might not be the highest performers. How about making promotion based, at least in part, on how well candidates do on a centrally-administered* exam. This would act as a bulwark against the promotion of mediocre protégés.
[* Centrally administered by an HR team to prevent managers from giving the answers to their favorite protégés. This isn’t fearmongering--it happened in a major police force recently.]
This is a great question and the answer largely depends on the specific agency - USPS is different than the Fed - but my gut is mostly to just trust managers more. I think promoting favorites and protégés on average is better than what we have now since it is closer to true merit than seniority.
Ideally you would be able to tie them to outcomes as closely as possible but the government is there to solve problems the market can’t and so this is a bit of a fools errand.
Re exams: from a historical example - terrible idea. The Chinese did it for centuries and the central exam became a huge drain on their society and hindered innovation. A more recent example would be the Indian exams.
There will never be a great, or even very, very good, system. People and situations are too random. What we have now, despite the article (which has a LOT of things wrong) is pretty decent. Before worrying about superior people getting promoted, the far bigger problem is how to remove the deadwood.
Great article! I could write a book on the flaws of the GS system and probably would if I didn’t think it’d kill my chances of being further promoted. For further research, I’d suggest you look at how horrible the Classification system is. Secretaries don’t even have control of what Grade their Title 5 employees are at, so how are we supposed to hire engineers and tech workers with a GS-7 starting pay, and often a cap around GS-12 for non supervisory field workers? There are some flexibility’s, but not enough.
I can't agree with this. The military is highly meritocratic and produces plenty of good leaders who also do well once they leave, all without being part of a public sector union. Clearly there is more than just seniority going on there.
A good bureaucracy is downstream of good leadership, which politicians aren't providing. Is this because the system is too complex, not a good enough culture, or something else? In any case a comparison to the military suggests it isn't merely the seniority system.
The seniority system for politicians is however terrible. It's also worth noting that no developed democracy has this problem other than the US (and maybe Japan).
Fed gov jobs were, until the Trump admin, extremely competitive despite weak salaries for the education level, attracted way above average grads who are public service minded (and also somewhat personally risk averse), and on a person by person basis do not end up being staffed by dregs.
For example, there are several officers who are fast risers and are promoted early. I’ve known several below the zone people, and they were generally very deserving. This doesn’t just happen on the officer side either. Regardless, most officers are not in it to make money, rather to serve the country. Still a lot of “idealism” in military despite the Milley/Austin debacle.
I can’t comment on the DOE, but in DOD those that are not pay-banded (the majority of people), you can only move up in step, not grade. And grade is where the advancement is. I knew folks that were at step 10 in their grade for decades and eventually retired out. Generally, someone who is superior gets promoted up in grade and leaves the average person behind. Also, very few white collar jobs are union positions; almost all blue collar of police and fire. In my 30 years of Gov work I only met a few office workers that were union covered.
Another error is that only the Fed Reserve is outside the GS series - that is completely wrong. There are a lot of jobs that don’t fall under the GS series. Doctors, Air Traffic, Police, Fire, Executive Branch, etc, etc. Furthermore, the GS scale only tops out at ~$162K for non-locality, and most people get locality pay and it counts towards retirement. For example, in my area GS-15 step 10 now caps out at $197K. I certainly earned more than $162K/yr when I retired two years ago. Most Fed workers that I met were more than happy to take lower pay for the benefits and stability, and many that retire can go to work for a Gov support contractor if they want, but there is no real need since our retirement triad is pretty good.
No real comment on the cognitive section, but you got the Fed pay part very wrong. I suspect you have never interacted with Federal workers or studied the system and are writing out of ignorance. BTW, the stereotype of the lazy Gov worker is true in qyite a few cases - I can name names. Finally, you need a history lesson on why it is the way it is before proposing something different. We have GS because what came before is similar to what you are proposing.
I’m not sure where you got me saying the Fed is the only agency outside of the GS scale the quote was
“An exception to the seniority system is the Federal Reserve, which sits outside the GS pay scale and can set its own compensation and promotion schedules.”
Okay, you are correct, but the way it is worded sort of implies it is an outlier. There is also the WG scale which has a sizeable number of people, and within DOD there is plenty of non-appropriated fund positions. It can be very complex…
Repeal the 17th amendment! Restore the spoils system.
The spoils system was a check/balance against permanent mediocrity. Government jobs should be insured (parachutes provided), but they should not be assured (we can’t get rid of you). The goal of each administration should be to purge the incompetent/disruptive, keep the able, and put in place the loyalists. The people who stay, stay because they are able to be sieved through the upsets. For those, each administration becomes a renegotiation opportunity for promotion.
Ultimately, game theory will win the day on the spoils system.
Creative destruction is good 😤
I agree that in a high-performing, elite team, there's a good overlap between the "favorites and protégés" and "high performers." However, in a low-performing unit or branch, the favorites might be "drinking buddies of manager" or "college buddies of leader."
Regarding performance-based promotion, how do you propose that the US public service do this fairly? One risk is that US managers might give the highest performance ratings to their favorites and protégés--who might not be the highest performers. How about making promotion based, at least in part, on how well candidates do on a centrally-administered* exam. This would act as a bulwark against the promotion of mediocre protégés.
[* Centrally administered by an HR team to prevent managers from giving the answers to their favorite protégés. This isn’t fearmongering--it happened in a major police force recently.]
This is a great question and the answer largely depends on the specific agency - USPS is different than the Fed - but my gut is mostly to just trust managers more. I think promoting favorites and protégés on average is better than what we have now since it is closer to true merit than seniority.
Ideally you would be able to tie them to outcomes as closely as possible but the government is there to solve problems the market can’t and so this is a bit of a fools errand.
Re exams: from a historical example - terrible idea. The Chinese did it for centuries and the central exam became a huge drain on their society and hindered innovation. A more recent example would be the Indian exams.
There will never be a great, or even very, very good, system. People and situations are too random. What we have now, despite the article (which has a LOT of things wrong) is pretty decent. Before worrying about superior people getting promoted, the far bigger problem is how to remove the deadwood.
Great article! I could write a book on the flaws of the GS system and probably would if I didn’t think it’d kill my chances of being further promoted. For further research, I’d suggest you look at how horrible the Classification system is. Secretaries don’t even have control of what Grade their Title 5 employees are at, so how are we supposed to hire engineers and tech workers with a GS-7 starting pay, and often a cap around GS-12 for non supervisory field workers? There are some flexibility’s, but not enough.
I feel like giving secretaries discretion over salaries would be p smart
Basically we need to bring back the Chinese imperial exam
Yes
No!
I like these proposals far better than a Logan's Run solution. 😉
💀
I can't agree with this. The military is highly meritocratic and produces plenty of good leaders who also do well once they leave, all without being part of a public sector union. Clearly there is more than just seniority going on there.
A good bureaucracy is downstream of good leadership, which politicians aren't providing. Is this because the system is too complex, not a good enough culture, or something else? In any case a comparison to the military suggests it isn't merely the seniority system.
The seniority system for politicians is however terrible. It's also worth noting that no developed democracy has this problem other than the US (and maybe Japan).
Fed gov jobs were, until the Trump admin, extremely competitive despite weak salaries for the education level, attracted way above average grads who are public service minded (and also somewhat personally risk averse), and on a person by person basis do not end up being staffed by dregs.
I don’t get where this belief comes from.
Yes, but let's not call it "the spoils system"; that was a pejorative slur promoted by those who were pushing the civil service model.
> The obvious counter to what I’m saying is that seniority protections exist for a reason;
> namely, protecting lifetime bureaucrats from political capture and pressure...
Wait, wait... why should bureaucrats be protected from political pressure? That's part of our current problem, isn't it?
You have some basics wrong.
For example, there are several officers who are fast risers and are promoted early. I’ve known several below the zone people, and they were generally very deserving. This doesn’t just happen on the officer side either. Regardless, most officers are not in it to make money, rather to serve the country. Still a lot of “idealism” in military despite the Milley/Austin debacle.
I can’t comment on the DOE, but in DOD those that are not pay-banded (the majority of people), you can only move up in step, not grade. And grade is where the advancement is. I knew folks that were at step 10 in their grade for decades and eventually retired out. Generally, someone who is superior gets promoted up in grade and leaves the average person behind. Also, very few white collar jobs are union positions; almost all blue collar of police and fire. In my 30 years of Gov work I only met a few office workers that were union covered.
Another error is that only the Fed Reserve is outside the GS series - that is completely wrong. There are a lot of jobs that don’t fall under the GS series. Doctors, Air Traffic, Police, Fire, Executive Branch, etc, etc. Furthermore, the GS scale only tops out at ~$162K for non-locality, and most people get locality pay and it counts towards retirement. For example, in my area GS-15 step 10 now caps out at $197K. I certainly earned more than $162K/yr when I retired two years ago. Most Fed workers that I met were more than happy to take lower pay for the benefits and stability, and many that retire can go to work for a Gov support contractor if they want, but there is no real need since our retirement triad is pretty good.
No real comment on the cognitive section, but you got the Fed pay part very wrong. I suspect you have never interacted with Federal workers or studied the system and are writing out of ignorance. BTW, the stereotype of the lazy Gov worker is true in qyite a few cases - I can name names. Finally, you need a history lesson on why it is the way it is before proposing something different. We have GS because what came before is similar to what you are proposing.
I’m not sure where you got me saying the Fed is the only agency outside of the GS scale the quote was
“An exception to the seniority system is the Federal Reserve, which sits outside the GS pay scale and can set its own compensation and promotion schedules.”
Okay, you are correct, but the way it is worded sort of implies it is an outlier. There is also the WG scale which has a sizeable number of people, and within DOD there is plenty of non-appropriated fund positions. It can be very complex…