Encyclopedia > United States Civil Service Commission
The Office of Personnel Management or OPM is the United States government agency which serves to manage the civil service of the United States by the recruitment of qualified personnel into and the administration of their careers as part of the United States Civil Service.
The OPM was originally founded as the United States Civil Service Commission by the Civil Service Act of 1883. It became the OPM by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978.
To support the movement in the UnitedStates, proponents of universal old-age pensions pointed out that by the early twentieth century, thirty-two countries around the world, including most of the European states and many regimes considered to be reactionary on social issues, had some type of old-age pension for their non-military public employees.
On the one hand, this summary of state and local pension plans suggests that of all of the political units in the UnitedStates, the states themselves were the slowest to create pension plans for their civilservice workers.
Although the maintenance and operation of the state and local pension funds varied greatly during this early period, most plans required a contribution from workers, and this contribution was to be deposited in a so-called "annuity fund." The assets of the fund were to be "invested" in various ways.
The federal bureaucracy in the years after the Civil War was generally undistinguished, because the system of selecting officials and supervising their work was irrational.
By end of the Civil War the number had increased to 53,000; by 1884, 131,000; and by 1891, 166,000.
A civilservice movement started in New York in 1877, and although it developed considerable public support, the politicians refused to go along.
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