Originally Posted by
chollie
I have seen no evidence that the TSOs calling in sick are only or mostly very lowly paid, ie, LTSOs and STSOs and BDOs, the higher paid ranks, are showing up.
There's no discussion of the fact that many lower-paid folks are one-half of a dual-income household and they are not the primary wage-earner.
It's also possible to be earning six figures and still be unable to deal with a delayed paycheck. We hear about 'big numbers' of TSOs quitting, but reports are conspicuously silent on the actual number. I suspect that's because it's 99% talk and few are actually leaving.
The IRS is calling back several thousand workers - delayed paychecks - to process income tax returns. I haven't heard the level of threats and complaints from the IRS folks that seem to be coming from the airports. For what it's worth, I just googled pay scales for TSA, the IRS and the Coast Guard (under the same umbrella as TSA). The lower end of the payscale is pretty much the same for all three, so why aren't the IRS and Coast Guard people threatening to quit and whining? Are they non-union? Is that the difference?
Lower paid Americans, especially male ones, tend to be less likely to have stable marital relationships and tend to be more likely to have lower paid spouses even when in stable marital relationships. The TSA workforce is at or near the bottom of the barrel in the federal government workforce so even the ones in ordinarily dual-income households are probably struggling financially in ways that aren’t applicable to most of the FT crowd.