Feds Earn 78% More Than Private Sector Workers, Study Finds

Government Executive ^ | 10/6/15 | Eric Katz

[Don Hernando de Las Casas]

for later

[ldish]

Federal employees tend to be better educated and work in jobs that require higher skill levels compared to non-federal jobs . . .

if this is true then why in the hell is everything the govt does is so screwed up...why are the countries problems so bad and only getting worse...need to overthrow this govt and start all over with the constitution that is in place with no court rulings

[budda1954]

Those with more specialized jobs don’t get much more than the scrubs. For instance, architects and lawyers pay is below average in comparison to private compensation. The government desires to keep everyone close in pay, so the janitors and the secretaries make bank.

[Sequoyah101]

The lard assed bureaucrat said as he lit a cigar with a $100 bill:

Robert Goldenkoff, director of strategic issues at the Government Accountability Office and author of a 2012 report examining the federal-private pay gap, of the new study. “Federal employees tend to be better educated and work in jobs that require higher skill levels compared to non-federal jobs, so Cato’s results comparing average wages of feds to other sectors are both not surprising and don’t tell the whole story. More rigorous, sophisticated analysis is needed.”

Jobs have been inflated to beat hell. I remember when a GS-12 meant something. Now it seems everyone is a GS-12 or higher especially in the darling agencies like EPA, justice etc.

As for better educated and higher skilled... not the ones I deal with. They just barely get by. Get jobs in the private sector... not likely. They don’t qualify.

[USNBandit]

One piece of the excess is the myriad of huge staffs working on amazingly insignificant projects in the government. We do not need separate staffs in every agency of every department coming up with EEO training, etc. All that common training could come from OPM.

[PAR35]

Some of the general computer based training - NOFEAR Act, etc., does span agencies now. But there is room for expansion of that. Law enforcement is another area with a lot of overlap. Does every agency need its own armed police force?

I agree that there is room to slim things down for the benefit of the taxpayers, but the analysis needs to be done by folks with integrity.

[PAR35]

As for better educated and higher skilled... not the ones I deal with. They just barely get by. Get jobs in the private sector... not likely. They don’t qualify.

The solution to that may be to completely revise veterans preference. Give the (non-retired) vets a preference on their first civilian job out of the military. Once they are in the civilian workforce and build up some experience, let them compete on a level field.