88 wrote:If I had to make a wager on the data, I would say that the reason private sector individuals with a doctorate make more than public sector individuals with a doctorate has more to do with the occupations and business structures than anything else. Attorneys and physicians in private practice tend to own their own businesses (or a share of it) and thus profit as business persons. Attorneys and physicians in the public sector are merely employees. They own no business and thus do not profit from it. The separation in incomes in that circumstance seems quite obvious. But it also appears in other areas. If you have a PhD in a marketable field, you are likely going to some day start your own business or acquire some interest in the business you work for (stock options etc.). Again, this does not happen in the public sector. And this has real consequences. Those with skin in the game tend to innovate and reap financial benefits as compared to those in the public sector. When was the last time the U.S. government or any agency thereof came up with a valuable innovation? Not too often, and takes a lot of thought to consider. NASA, which does a lot of research, mostly innovates through contractors who are paid to do so (and who profit from their innovations through future contracts). It isn't too often that NASA goes to Boeing or some other contractor and says "hey guys, we just invented this new device, will you build it for us?" It usually goes the other way. NASA or the DoD or some other agency sends out a list of specs and solicits bids, and then private business innovates and competes to try to suckle from the public teet.
It kind of goes back to the saying I used to hear a lot when I was in college: Those who can, do. And those who can't either teach or work for government. That isn't a blanket statement against all. But on the whole, and particularly with professionals with PhD's, it seems to fit. The best and brightest can do far better in most instances outside the constraints of the federal pay system, which leaves those positions to be filled with the people who are there. And the best and brightest go on to private practice and do better over time.
Is that logic fucked up and outside your personal experiences, Mikey? You left after five years. How would you have done by comparison if you had stayed in that position and not gone into the private sector?
I agree with what you're saying, to a point. There are a lot of corporate attorneys out there making huge $$. I think that attorneys working for the government, while their scale is probably higher than your general GS pay scale (there's something called SES - Senior Executive Service), I'm pretty sure that they max out at a fraction of what a top level corporate shyster can make. Also, I think that the trend with physicians is moving away from private practice, at least in urban and suburban centers, and more towards corporate medicine, or whatever it may be called. Our primary physicians, for example, are with the UCSD Health System, which has offices spread around San Diego County, a huge modern hospital complex and affiliations with other local hospitals, access to a large network of specialists, and centralized billing, appointments and records. I don't know what their pay scale is but, for the most part, everything there is very high quality.
The choice for a highly credentialed professional to go into government comes down to a few factors.
Less pressure to "succeed" (i.e. bring in a profit) than in a private practice or in the corporate world.
More job security (though maybe not these days).
Don't really care about getting rich.
Desire to serve the public good. Believe it or not this actually does play into some peoples' decisions, even the "best and the brightest." Possibly even more so for some of the best and the brightest.
In my case, I was desperate for a fucking job. I had never thought of working for the government, or ever moving to Las Vegas (Henderson, actually). I had gotten laid off, had two small kids, was living off my wife's income (she was looking at a potential RIF at General Dynamics as well), a small inheritance, and some low wage part time work. I applied for this job on a whim and after six months (nine months of no real prospects) I got to interview in Vegas. Even though I left that job five years later in a really pissed off state of mind, it was probably one of the best moves I could have made. This was almost 30 years ago. It was very hands-on and I learned a hell of a lot about things that I still work on today. Also gained a lot of self-confidence running some pretty large projects, and was doing something that I thought could have an important effect on a lot of people. My other best move was getting out when I did.
I decided that I had pretty much hit the ceiling there when I got turned down for the promotion. I'm not against giving some preference, all other things being equal, to groups who have been historically discriminated against. My wife sure saw a lot of the good old boy network at GD while an engineer there in the 80s. But in my case there wasn't even any competition. The job was open for six months and, as far as I know, I was the only qualified person to apply. My impression was that they were looking for a woman, or some other minority and, because they didn't find anybody that fit that description, they shut it down rather than hire me. That was absolutely the last straw as far as I was concerned.
