Obama to use procurement authority to boost standard of living

[Vekseid]

From the New York Times

...

David Madland, director of the American Workers Project at the Center for American Progress, a liberal research group founded by Mr. Podesta, argues the new policy could lower government costs, instead of raising them.

Many low-wage employees of federal contractors receive Medicaid and food stamps, he said. Citing studies conducted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and by academic researchers, he said that contractors that pay their employees well have greater productivity and reliability, while contractors with a record of labor law violations do shoddier construction work.

“This policy is good for workers, it’s good for taxpayers and it’s good for high-road businesses,” Mr. Madland said.

He said that one study done by the state of Maryland found that after the state began requiring bidders to pay a living wage, the number of bidders per contract rose by a third on average. Some higher-wage companies said they began seeking government bids because the new policy leveled the playing field.

...

Liberal as the study may seem I do have personal experience with the above - many government contracts are of a nature that is not exactly helped by a stressed out workforce. It is a well-known fact in the software industry, for example, that one great programmer is worth more than a dozen good ones, and one good programmer is worth a dozen average. The reason behind cost many overruns is often due to forced turnover in the software division.

One department I worked alongside had an eighty percent six-month turnover rate. The project was canceled due to those overruns and it was big enough that military geeks would recognize it.

This happens over and over, again and again.

So seeing stuff like this - even if there are obvious difficulties - is quite encouraging. This sort of thing is crippling our military development right now. I'd hate to think what is going on elsewhere.