$25,000 position, and my salary would have risen quite rapidly to that figure had I continued my association with that company. I might also mention that I was recently the leading candidate for a $25,000 post with another company, but withdrew my name on the basis of personal preference.

All of these positions involved the direction of technical efforts, work comparable as regards interest, challenge, and responsibility to the post at NASALewis. The companies are all leaders in their respective fields, since the only organizations I am considering are like NASA-first-class as regards the caliber of the people and the organization in general. In other words, NASA's well-deserved reputation can hardly be used to justify a lesser pay scale, at least in the case of these companies.

The Federal Governmen's pension plan is justly appreciated, but the 61⁄2 percent payroll deduction compares adversely with the zero to 2% percent deductions at the company I am considering, whose pension plans incidentally confer about the same benefits as the Government's.

I am aware that the position we have been discussing for me carries potential increases amounting ultimately to perhaps $1,000 per year. Here, too, I regret that industry's picture is more attractive, since generally raises are of the order of 3 to 5 percent per year for a number of years. In many instances industry also is able to offer bonuses or promotions for work of exceptional merit. Especially in senior positions, industry's salary ranges for a given position are far broader than the Government's.

I have kept in mind the President's request for a 30-percent increase in the salaries of senior scientists, and would presume that at least a part of this request may be approved before too long. Nevertheless, there is too little assurance as regards the outcome to sway the balance in my case. It is my hope that documenting my position may influence the outcome in some small way because-speaking for the moment as a taxpayer--the moderate investment would certainly be returned many times over in terms of attracting and holding the scientists you desire.

In a few days I expect to be able to decide as to which position in industry to accept, and will then write to you giving my new address in the hopes that I may see you and Messrs. Lundin, Johnson, and Manson again when you are in my vicinity.

With all best personal wishes,

Sincerely yours,

Recently NASA lost one of its senior technical directors-a man whose advice, counsel, and fresh ideas had long helped the former NACA and the United States hold its position at the front of worldwide aeronautical developments. He had, incidentally, been the initiator and prime mover of the very important experimental airplane program which currently is illustrated in the flights of the X-15. These combined airplane and space vehicles have attained the speed of five times that of sound, and have demonstrated the feasibility of the transition from aircraft to spacecraft. John Stack had been compensated, for years, at $19,000. He recently was brought to NASA headquarters from the Langley Research Center. In headquarters he was NASA's Director of Aeronautical Research, at $20,000. But he has left, after years of resisting very attractive offers from industry, for a figure over five times that of his Government salary. He is not lost to the country. However, proprietary considerations of industry will, in effect, deny him the freedom to contribute at the national level. He will not be contributing to all industries and to the Air Force and Navy at the level he has been during the past 20 years. As a leader with great attraction and support from his team within the NASA laboratories, NASA is concerned that additional keymen from NASA will leave. Such losses will seriously weaken the very important work in aeronautical research.

I have cited these two cases as illustrations of how delicate this matter of salaries is in the type of highly competent staff that is necessary in our aerospace program. I should like to turn, now, to the general problem of top-level salaries, as these are required for the attracting and retaining of key scientists, engineers, and managers for our space program.

The bill merely continues the 425 positions which the Administrator of NASA may establish in the supergrade range. In our questioning of the representatives of NASA we discovered that whereas they had estimated their requirements for additional positions at 115 for this next fiscal year, this request has not been acted upon by the Bureau of the Budget. If not presented and acted upon this session, NASA will have serious problems with its top management positions during this coming year.

Specifically, the NASA has explained its needs for these higher level positions in terms of its program requirements. We have, in the past, reviewed such requirements together with the other resources needed. This committee's understanding and support in this matter a year ago when the NASA's program was so greatly increased is laudable. This year, the House of Representatives authorized a greatly increased space program. Much of this will be the result of plans and contracts developed during the past year. However, in several areas there will be needed expansion in the top-level staffing for which additional excepted positions will be required.

In this regard I should like to call your attention to the difference between these excepted positions in NASA and the use of grades GS16, GS-17, and GS-18 in other agencies. NASA uses the range from $15,500 to $19,000 in $500 intervals. NASA has established its top-level scientists, managers, and executives in various groupings at some eight different levels. Compressing these eight levels into three, GS-16, GS-17, and GS-18, would be difficult. GS-18 would, in most cases, be used only for the highest level institutional managers. This would leave only two broad grades or levels to cover what now are recognized over a range of eight or nine different levels. Frankly, in the NASA it is not so much the amount of money, in the range between, say, $16,000 and $19,000, but who are at $16,000 and at $16,500, who at $17,000, and who at $18,000 and $18,500. The two systems do not mix well. We believe, therefore, that NASA should be permitted to continue using these excepted positions, as provided in the Space Act and in the present bill. But, we also strongly urge that the number of these positions be increased to reflect significant changes in the scope of the space program and their requirements for additional top-level personnel in science, engineering, and management.

With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I would like to close this testimony with a general reference in support of the pay increases for the rank-and-file employees of the post office and civil service systems. Many of my constituents in the 8th Congressional District of California are loyally devoting their services to the public interest. However, these individuals who are heads of households find it increasingly more difficult to cope with the ever-increasing cost of living on the salaries that they are currently being paid.

There is no question but what our public servants are discharging their duties in a well-trained and competent manner. I am certain

that efficient private industrial operation would be hard put to equal the efficiency of our public employees; however, when the pay scales of employees in the civil service or postal services are compared to private industry, it is rather difficult to reconcile the lower pay scales of the public enterprise versus the higher pay scales in the private

sector.

In view of these factors I believe it is imperative that we take action now to give an adjustment to these pay scales throughout all levels of employment in the Federal Government. Mr. Chairman, I certainly appreciate the opportunity extended to me to appear before your committee and I wish you and the other members of this committee well in the deliberations that face you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Miller.

The next witness is Hon. Eugene J. Keogh, of New York.

STATEMENT OF HON. EUGENE J. KEOGH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK

Mr. KEOGH. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I would like to begin by expressing my appreciation for your courtesty and consideration in permitting me to make this statement in behalf of H.R. 9531, the postal pay legislation introduced by the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana, the Honorable James H. Morrison.

I don't think it is necessary to prove to this committee that postal employees are in desperate need of a pay increase. In my opinion, and I am sure it is your opinion, the case has been abundantly proved by the long list of witnesses that has appeared before you since the hearings began.

The present salary structure of a letter carrier or postal clerk which ranges from $4,345 to $5,305, with an average of $5,005, a year, is totally inadequate for present-day living requirements and, in my opinion, it is tragically out of line with the degree of intelligence and skill necessary for the adequate performance of postal work.

As you so well know, letter carriers work, for the most part, in metropolitan areas where the cost of living is extremely high. In the Borough of Brooklyn, where my own constituency lies, it is impossible for a man to raise a family decently on a salary of $5,005 a year. It just cannot be done.

A recent survey taken informally by employee leaders in the Brooklyn post office showed that 93 percent of the letter carriers employed there were either "moonlighting" by taking a second job at night, or, their wives were working full time to keep the family afloat. In my opinion, it is scandalous that the United States, the richest and most powerful Nation in the history of the world, does not pay its faithful and dedicated postal employees a wage sufficient to support their families without necessitating extra income. When a man works at two jobs, his efficiency suffers on both of those jobs. I am certain the mail service in every metropolitan area of the United States would be improved overnight if postal employees could afford to work exclusively at their post office jobs.

I also think, in a time of high unemployment, it is morally indefensible for the U.S. Government to force its postal employees to work at two jobs, thereby depriving unemployed workers from getting gainful employment.

84357-62-pt. 1- -48

The efficiency of our postal service over the years has been due to the fact that we have always been able to attract ambitious and competent young men who were willing to devote their lives to a postal career. This is no longer the case.

The average age of applicants for jobs in the Brooklyn post office today is 38 years. Under ideal circumstances it should be around 20. The men who are now willing to accept a postal job are those who have before them only a short career. As a matter of fact, by the time they have acquired sufficient experience to be of maximum value to the postal service, they will be on the verge of retirement.

In addition, there is irrefutable evidence that the quality of applicants for the postal service is declining at an alarming rate. A recent survey in the Brooklyn post office showed that only one-half of those applying for the civil service entrance examination bothered to show up to take the examination. And, of that one-half, only 22 percent are capable of passing the examination. The Post Office Department in the New York area is now experimenting with drastically simplified examinations for applicants for postal jobs. Unless we make the career enticing for able young men, we shall see a degeneration and collapse of postal service not only in Brooklyn and the Greater New York area, but in every major metropolitan area in the

Nation.

We cannot afford to temporize by keeping present pay low in order to balance present-day budgets and then leaving it to future generations to pick up the pieces of the chaos we are creating through our own shortsightedness.

If the present low pay scale of postal employees is continued, its disastrous effects will be felt by our children and our children's children.

The bill which the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana introduced, and which I wholeheartedly support, H.R. 9531, will not make economic royalists out of postal employees. H.R. 9531, would give to those in level 4 pay grades as follows:

This bill includes the longevity provisions that are already in S. 2712. It provides for the elimination of one step and it curtails the time served in steps 1 and 2, to 6 months. It also provides time and one-half for substitutes.

This is not a princely wage to offer, but it will give hope to those who are now working for starvation wages and it will attract to the service the caliber of young men necessary for the continued success and efficient operation of the Postal Establishment.

Once again, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I want to express my thanks for your courtesy toward me today. And, in concluding, I want to urge with all the persuasiveness at my command that you view favorably, and as soon as possible, the legislation H.R. 9531, which the gentleman from Louisiana has introduced on behalf of the postal employees of the Nation.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Keogh.

The next witness is Hon. Alfred E. Santangelo, of New York.

STATEMENT OF HON. ALFRED E. SANTANGELO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK

Mr. SANTANGELO. I appreciate this opportunity to appear before the committee in support of an increase in the salaries of Federal employees. I shall direct my remarks primarily to H.R. 9531, the Postal Employees' Salary Act of 1962, which has been introduced by the distinguished ranking member of the committee from Louisiana. I have also cosponsored that legislation.

I wish to say, however, that I, of course, also support in principle the President's proposal to reform the major Federal salary systems. Such a reform is long overdue. I find it most refreshing to have an administration which, without pressure, makes such a proposal. Those of us who have supported such legislation in the past can only feel gratified at this change. The Federal Government is moving, for-. tunately, into the 20th century in personnel administration. Of course, the objectives of H.R. 10480, which has been introduced by your distinguished chairman, will receive my support. The President's proposal does not, however, go far enough in many respects. H.R. 9531, the Postal Employees' Salary Act already enjoys a wide measure of support. Some 40 of our colleagues, including many from the committee, have introduced the same bill. I have introduced it as H.R. 9617.

The difference between the approach to reform contained in the administration proposal and that in H.R. 9531 and H.R. 9617 lies, in the first instance, in the assumptions about the situation which requires reform.

I can best make my position clear to the committee if I, first, go back to the last time we acted to adjust the salaries of the postal workers and, second, use a specific example.

This was in 1960, during the Eisenhower administration. The last Federal salary adjustments which were enacted became effective on July 1 of that year.

The measures taken that year were inadequate. The pay of postal workers was inadequate before the 1960 adjustments. It was still inadequate after they were made. Two years nearly have passed. Their pay today is, of course, even more inadequate. Our first problem, as far as the postal workers is concerned, is to help them catch up to the pay level of other workers, Federal, State, and local, as well as those in private industry.

It is right here, Mr. Chairman, that I find that the proposal of the President does not go far enough. It ties the scale of the postal workers to the existing relationship with other Federal salaries and then relates them to private salaries. This perpetuates, writes into law, for all we know permanently, an inadequate pay scale. It condemns the postal worker to lasting economic injustice.

The first problem then, as I see it, is to give the postal worker economic justice, by bringing his relative salary position into its proper relationship with other Government salaries. The test in my opinion is take-home pay and its adequacy-thus to give him the same adjustment in salaries relative to private employment as is received by other Federal workers. To do anything less is to make