Myth of the underpaid public employee

The Boston Globe reports:

Consider the lucrative lot of the men and women who work for Uncle Sam. In 2008, according to data from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, the 1.9 million civilian employees of the federal government earned an average salary of $79,197. The average private employee, by contrast, earned just $49,935. The difference between them came to more than $29,000 - a differential that has more than doubled since 2000.

Take account of total compensation - wages plus benefits - and the disparity is even more striking. In 2008, total federal civilian compensation averaged $119,982 - more than twice the $59,908 in wages and benefits earned by the average private-sector employee. Chris Edwards, a scholar at the Cato Institute, has documented the steady widening of the gap: In 1960, federal workers averaged $1.24 for every $1 earned by a private employee. By 1980, the federal advantage was up to $1.51; in 2000 it was $1.66. Now it is $2 - and climbing. When ranked alongside 72 industries that span the US economy, federal employees take home the seventh-highest average compensation. Among the workers they outearn, Edwards shows, are those in such fields as computer systems design, chemical products, and legal services.

It isn’t only at the federal level that the political class so handsomely takes care of its own. “State and local government workers get paid an average of $25.30 an hour, which is 33 percent higher that the private sector’s $19,’’ Forbes magazine reports. “Throw in pensions and other benefits and the gap widens to 42 percent.’’ The Tax Foundation calculates that “non-wage compensation’’ for the average state and local government employee worked out to $12,362 in 2007. For the average employee in the private sector, the comparable figure was just $8,784.

Americans increasingly fall into one of two camps. Those who work for the government - about 15 percent of the labor force - tend to enjoy sumptuous perks, virtually indestructible job security, and pensions that are guaranteed for life. The rest of us work in the private economy, where millions of jobs can be wiped out by a recession, defined-benefit pensions are disappearing, and competition and downsizing are facts of life.

The special class.