TOPICS
TOPICS
Report: Federal pay, benefits double private sector's
New figures from the Commerce Department's U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis show average compensation for federal employees to be double that of private sector workers for the first time.
Federal workers earned an average of $106,579 in 2005, including benefits, or about twice the average private sector compensation of $53,289 with benefits included. This marked the first time federal compensation reached this point; for 2004 the bureau's statistics put it at slightly less than double the private sector's.
Without benefits, the difference for 2005 is less. Federal employees earned an average salary of $71,114 while their private sector counterparts earned $43,917.
Libertarian scholar Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute think tank wrote about the increase on his blog.
"I thought that new data for 2005 would show the federal advantage narrowing due to strong private sector growth," Edwards said. "Instead, the federal advantage increased once again. Average federal wages rose 5.8 percent in 2005 compared to an increase of 3.3 percent in the private sector."
But the growing divide cannot be attributed to out-of-control federal pay, said National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley. She argued that increased government outsourcing means more blue-collar jobs were in the private sector.
Kelley called for a direct comparison between the same jobs in the private and public sectors.
"The federal workforce is a white-collar workforce and more and more federal jobs are in professional categories, like lawyers [and] accountants," she said. "A much larger percentage of federal workers have college degrees than private sector workers. So the comparison of the white-collar federal workforce to the entire private sector workforce, which includes many blue-collar jobs, isn't apples to apples."
She also said benefits have not increased for federal employees, so any gap would likely be due to a decrease in private sector benefits, such as eliminating health care or pensions.
"This is a huge problem that would be much more worthy of review," Kelley said.
Edwards is an advocate for government downsizing and a transfer of highly skilled jobs to the private sector. In May, he released a paper arguing the pay gap between the public and private sectors runs counter to the current thinking.
In 1990, Congress passed the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act, which was designed to bring federal employees closer to their private sector counterparts in pay, but was never fully implemented. That program uses the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics to find salary comparisons. BLS matches salaries for specific jobs.
COMMENTS
- While an avid supporter of your publication, I was concerned by the tone of the first two paragraphs in this article. I.e. they sounded like a statement of fact that extended throughout the federal bureaucracy when, in reality, they are exclusive to a minor portion of the government (Commerce’s 37,719 employees of the total 1,832,626 equal 2 percent, as per reference below). This tone seemed different from your earlier articles on the subject. Those identified the data interpretations as specific to the organizations and individuals spouting them. The facts are there and the government/administration is the source. See the “Federal Civilian Workforce Statistics, the Fact Book.” The statistically average Federal Civilian is a GS-9. And there is quite simply no way a GS-9, making a gross of $59,238, can cost the government $100,000 annually, with or without benefits being calculated in. Many have been the pundits who spout support for the A-76 and contractors, citing the long term savings. Working at the grass roots level, I’d say that you get what you pay for. Except, when it comes to contractors, the government often doesn’t get what it pays for. While not being held responsible for personnel retirement funds, such programs put an additional layer of retail management between the producers (the contractor employees) and the consumers (the government). And the markup is averaging 100 percent of cost. The additional unaccounted for costs include the reoccurring training due to the higher personnel turnover and a relatively lower level of production. Now, I have known many contractors and do not fault them individually. It’s the nature of the beast. The real and only profiteer in this mix is the contract managers. And we now need a new type of government worker, i.e. the legal beagle, contract-smart overseer. Many are the times I’ve seen the letter of the contract met, without the government getting what it asked for. What did my installation do to remedy this lack? They hired a contract management contractor. Go figure. Tip off. Tip Posted September 7, 2006 10:24 AM
- I am a bit late at responding to this discussion. I just ran into it today. I decided to check my own field. The American Chemical Society had a report on Chemist salaries that included a graph of average industrial salaries by years since degree was obtained. I discovered that the average is $15,000 higher in industry than my current salary. Most Chemists in my organization with PhD degrees and similar years of experience are at or near my current salary. GovExec.com reader Posted September 2, 2006 1:34 PM
- I do believe someone has been sniffing too much glue. Rick Posted August 24, 2006 6:49 AM
