The State of the Merit System: Perceptions of Abuse in the Federal Civil Service

To what extent are personnel decisions in the federal government really based on merit? This article examines the perceptions of two knowledgeable groups, personnel specialists and federal employees, about abuses of the merit system. While the occurrence of most forms of abuse are relatively infrequent, perceptions of their occurrence differ sharply by agency. Survey findings suggest that perceptions of discrimination increased markedly in the eight years of the Reagan administration.