Are Federal Government Workers More Overpaid Than You Think?

Newsmax reports:

Compensation for the federal government's 1.9 million civilian workers in the executive branch costs almost $200 billion annually, according to a study by Chris Edwards, director of Tax Policy Studies at the Cato Institute.

Federal wages and benefits, Edwards reports, have been rising quickly, and by 2004, the average compensation of federal workers was almost twice the average in the private sector.

As a result, Edwards says that "The federal civilian workforce has become an elite island of secure and high-paid workers, separated from the ocean of private-sector American workers who must compete in today’s dynamic economy.”

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His study, "Federal Pay outpaces Private-Sector Pay," Cato Institute, May 2006, showed:

# The average federal worker earned $100,178 in wages and benefits in 2004, which compared to $51,876 for the average private-sector worker. Looking just at wages, federal workers earned an average $66,558, 56 percent more than the $42,635 earned by the average private worker.

# According to U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data, since 1990 average compensation has increased 115 percent in the government and 69 percent in the private sector.

Here's the study by Cato.Those government workers sure are special.The people vs. the really powerful.