mitted from the President to the Congress. This was not intentional. In fact, we think it is important that the Congress not only set the broad principles and policies for the system, but that it exercise an oversight responsibility in connection with our operation of the system. We think it is entirely appropriate that we make an annual accounting of our stewardship. We have no objection to its being added by this committee.

This covers, in brief, the administration's views with respect to Federal wage legislation.

We think the administration offers a good bill-one which will provide the basis for fair and equitable treatment of wage employees. It is consistent with the prevailing rate concept.

It provides the means for management and labor to discuss and resolve issues directly, with each having a voice in the decision.

Most importantly, it vests in the Congress the awesome responsibility for determining broad, basic policy, but it empowers the Chief Executive to make sound administrative choices within the framework of broad policy.

It is a law which can help us to change with the time.

We respectfully urge you to give serious consideration to the administration's views and to the administration's proposal for legislation. This concludes my testimony. We thank you for your attention, and we will be glad to answer any questions you might have about the proposed bill.

1/ Based on rates generally in effect as of June 30 of each year except the 1971 rates. The 1971 rates are those in effect as of January 3, 1971

(1945 100)

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Hampton, for your presentation here in detail. It was very helpful to us in trying to arrive at our judgment.

One of our constantly present qualms of conscience, I suppose you would have to say, is, Look, who are we, trying to judge the level at which a man at the bottom of the wage scale is to be paid an adequate wage. We are getting $42,500 a year here in the Senate, and I don't know what some of the Bureau of the Budget people are getting, but they may be up over ours. We find more and more groups running ahead of the Senate.

Who are we? Isn't it easy for us to lay down a principle that ought to apply to the guy at the $5,000 or $6,000 level? We can be great on principle at that time.

I think we sometimes might-including us-be a little negligent on the nitty-gritty of the take-home pay, of putting the bucks where they are already committed. Having enough to go around, I think we feel a little sensitive about this, and I just hope we are not guilty of having chalked this off to principle to the neglect of the real work of making a living.

So this, I guess, underpins some of the philosophy that we seem to torture here as we grope for what I referred to earlier as equity in this, rather than comparability.

I think if it is equity, it ought to be comparable. But that is, again, playing with semantics.

Senator FONG. You should give us some thinking along that line, bring in the question of minimum pay, bring in the question of what industry is paying, a question of comparability. How do you mix them all up and say that this is an equitable wage? Is it proper for the Government to be following industry, with industry setting the pace? And, if industry sets the pace, and the Government watches the minimum wage is so much with the rate of collective bargaining under the workers; is this the proper method of handling it?

These are questions that come to our mind, and as I said, we are in a quandry as to what is right and what is not right.

I was just wondering whether you could really help us in our thinking along those lines?

Mr. HAMPTON. We will be glad to try.

Senator FONG. So much has been said about the fact that many of our employees do not have a livable wage, that this Government should pay a livable wage. Yet, when we pay a livable wage, which they ask, you say we have gone far beyond comparability. Instead of Government workers following the private sector, we are saying private sector must meet Government competition.

These things constantly run through this process whereby we try to arrive at a reasonable bill, and I was wondering whether you could, or the Commission could, help us along this line of thinking? Mr. HAMPTON. We will be glad to try.

Senator FONG. What is the philosophy back of it? Should 85 percent follow 15 percent? I think this is the right figure. Is that correct? Are 85 percent of the jobs in private industry?

Mr. HAMPTON. I think that the Federal Government makes up roughly 3 percent of the employment market in the country. Other

public service workers have increased, I think, to around 12 or 13 percent.

Senator FONG. Should 3 percent of the employees set the pace for the other 97 percent?

These are problems which we have to resolve in our minds before we can arrive at what we think is equity. And not having given much thought to that, and not being helped along this line by your Commission, we find that we are in a poverty situation when we begin to discuss these problems.

So I, for one, would like to really get some of that philosophical thinking along this line, and I think it would help us. I think it would help this committee.

The CHAIRMAN. It would be a great help to the committee, and just for example, one of the lurking difficulties that come forth and prey around the fringes of my conscience is that so far as I know, I have yet to have a private businessman come to me and say, "I am losing all of my employees to the Government."

But every time we hold a hearing, in whatever committee, we get the testimony that the Government is losing its employees at all levels to the private sector.

I don't know whether these are generalizations that particular bureaucrats make to make a case or whether it is true. But I don't recall a time that the private sector has complained to us that it was losing its employees to the Government because the Government was treating them more fairly.

So I just don't think we ought to be satisfied with playing catch up, as we have played for so many years. I think there is something to be said for this loosely using the word-equity.

So as you address yourself in this treatise-or however we want to dignify it that Senator Fong has alluded to here, I think that would be an appropriate part of the philosophy or discourse there.

I have a whole series of questions on

Senator FONG. Before you get to that, is it possible for us to postpone the meeting tomorrow? I am on the Visitors' Bureau at West Point, and I have to be there tomorrow.

The CHAIRMAN. It would be very difficult, for the reason that I have been trying to run hearings on the Agriculture appropriations, as the Senator knows. I am trying to integrate the two, and there aren't enough days left to get all of the hearings in if we don't do it this way.

I am on the Visitors' Bureau on Monday in San Diego, involving Naval things there, that I am stuck with, also. By the time I take out for that trip, we don't have any days left for the hearings.

I would be delighted to yield so that one of these days when you are here and I couldn't be here, we would still keep going. We are going to have to, I think, if we are going to finish this whole sequence of hearings.

It has been a difficult problem. If we could agree maybe even to keep the record open, so that you could examine it, and then we could call them back or inject questions to protect the record.

It is a time factor that is now pressing in on us.

Senator FONG. How many witnesses do you have?

The CHAIRMAN. In the first place, we have some five yet today, and I am going to suggest in just a moment, once we finish up here, about

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