A government job in a tier-3 city equals 10 million RMB over a lifetime [Repost]

Yes

Bullshit

Hard to say

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Today I suddenly felt inspired to calculate for everyone: how much is passing the civil service exam and getting on the establishment actually worth? The data may not be perfectly accurate—I'm just throwing out a brick to attract jade, so feel free to add or correct me in the comments.

Let me use a certain tier-3 city in Shandong, my hometown, as an example.

If you successfully land the job, your position is the most ordinary clerk. Monthly take-home pay + 13th-month salary + year-end assessment bonus + both-side housing provident fund—your average annual take-home income should be around 100,000 RMB. As your rank rises later on, your income will rise accordingly.

But that 100,000 isn't your true total income—you also have to factor in the social insurance and occupational annuity your employer pays for you. Your employer has to contribute 16% for pension insurance, 7.3% for medical insurance, and 8% for the occupational annuity. Roughly calculated, your employer spends an extra 25,000 RMB or so on you per year.

A simple calculation: 100,000 take-home per year plus 25,000 paid by your employer means you actually receive 125,000. Assuming you start work at 25 and retire at 65—40 years total—that's 5 million. But don't forget, I'm only calculating based on your starting salary; your income will definitely increase later, so accumulating 6–7 million is no problem at all.

When you retire at 65, assuming you're the most ordinary deputy section chief-level staff member, your current pension is about 9,000 per month, plus some benefits each year. Assuming 120,000 take-home per year and you live to 85—that's 20 years—you can collect about 2.5 million in pension.

In-service income + retirement income: the entire lifetime gift package is about 9 million RMB.

This money is just the visible income—all of it legal.

Beyond that there are other benefits. The most typical is medical care: Shandong civil servants have a dedicated civil servant medical subsidy. What that roughly means is that after going through normal medical insurance, when you're supposed to pay the personal portion, that personal portion can still be reimbursed at 85–90%, so civil servants basically don't spend money on medical care.

If you're chronically in poor health or encounter some major illness, civil servant status will help you enormously and save you a huge amount in medical costs.

There are also some small benefits, all above-board, like heating subsidies. Not much money, but every year, and after retirement too—added up over decades it's not a small sum.

Finally, there are some invisible benefits. For example, the emotional value that civil servant status brings you; the face value among relatives and friends during holidays and festivals; the value of greatly increased odds of finding a partner inside the system because you're a civil servant; the price of that lifetime freedom from worry about unemployment; the value of local connections and networks—those who know, know. I won't elaborate.

And don't rush—there's more. When your life reaches its end, civil servants also get a one-time bereavement payment. The specific calculation: per capita disposable income of urban residents nationwide in the previous year × 2 + 40 months of pension before death. Generally a few hundred thousand is no problem.

Add all this up, and over a lifetime it's a solid ten million plus.

Everything I've said above is solid, above-board stuff. Think about it—in a tier-3 city in Shandong, you can have all this with zero risk. Doesn't that completely crush 99% of people outside the system? This is the core reason for taking the civil service exam—getting in is truly great.

Lastly, please note: in today's economic climate, money will become more valuable, and the purchasing power of the RMB will grow stronger and stronger. If you factor that in too, the cost-effectiveness of a civil servant instantly rises another level.

Writing this, I suddenly thought of a recent news story about Starbucks saying that from now on you must make a purchase in-store to sit down. Why would Starbucks make such a rule? I suspect one very important reason is that there are too many unemployed people—and after losing your job, a perfect place to go is Starbucks. Every middle-aged unemployed person in Starbucks probably regrets not having taken the civil service exam back then.

To sum up: passing the civil service exam for a tier-3 city in Shandong is equivalent to receiving a 10-million-RMB lifetime gift package—food and clothing secure for life, substance and face, happiness maxed out. This is absolutely the ceiling for ordinary people. What do you think?

Reposted from: Beijing Big Potato