Comparable Pay for Comparable Work?

ODAY, government-Federal, state, and loT cal-must attract to its service a fair share of this country's ablest scientific, professional, and managerial manpower to cope with its steadily increasing responsibilities. And there are many evidences that governments cannot and do not attract and hold the number and type of men and women needed. These generalizations the reader can accept or reject. I do not propose to prove them, if they need be proved. What I do propose to do in this article is to pose two basic, and related, questions and the factual foundations which give them relevance. Can government get and hold the talent it requires if it cannot pay salaries comparable to what the men and women it needs would earn in private employment? Why should the salaries of Federal, state, and local officials in the middle and upper occupational levels be substantially lower than the salaries of executives and specialists doing like work for non-governmental employers?