Pay and Job Satisfaction in the Federal Civil Service

Recent years have seen increasing concerns in the public administration community that declining pay and increasing bureaucrat bashing have seriously damaged both the morale and quality of the civil service, making it difficult to recruit or retain excellent employees. Much of the evidence has been impressionistic, however. Using data from surveys by the Federal Executive Institute Alumni Association, the National Opinion Research Center, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, this article finds little evidence of a major decline in federal employee satisfaction over the past decade.