[Alfred O. Bama]

Nobody makes a million dollars a year in the federal government. Lots of people do in the private sector. Next question?

[DannyTN]

That just at the very top. Private sector employees at the top face competition. Government employees at the top are mostly bureacratic administrators. So that pay difference is somewhat justified.

But the average federal worker makes something like 1.8 times the average private sector worker. Study: Government Workers Make 78 Percent More Than Private Sector

Some of that difference is explained by the fact that government needs workers more capable than a burger flipper. But it often looks like they have filled the jobs with burger flippers anyway.

[Kickass Conservative]

As my Father once told me, the only time you can complain about a Job is the day someone puts a Gun to your Head and makes you take it.

[DiogenesLamp]

Nobody makes a million dollars a year in the federal government. Lots of people do in the private sector. Next question?

How many people in the Federal government produce a million dollars worth of service to the public? And by that I mean the worthwhile part of the public, not the parasites.

[Safetgiver]

Nobody makes a million dollars a year in the federal government.....Nobody in Federal government produces anything. Next question? Newbie.

[sphinx]

"Lots of people" do NOT make a million dollars a year in the private sector. That income would put you in a top sliver of the top one percent. In addition, a wrinkle that is often overlooked is that a high percentage of the million dollar club are reporting a once-in-a-lifetime event. These are the business owners who retire and sell out, or the corporate executives who cash in their stock options, or the upper middle class empty nesters who got lucky on real estate and are now downsizing and retiring a couple of years early on their equity. A lot of these people may report a million dollars in income in one year. The number who have a steady income stream at that level is much lower.

The federal pay scale is highly compressed. The feds pay very well at worker bee and mid-management levels, but the senior executives earn less than their private sector counterparts. There are not too many people in the private sector running five and ten billion dollar operations and making $180,000 a year, but it is common in government. (The offset is of course unmatched job security and a great retirement.) In the private sector, tenure at the top is often very short. Firings, reorganizations, downsizings, corporate acquisitions, etc. are ever present realities. The feds are insulated from most of this churning.

The real metric to watch is quit rates. There IS movement in and out of the leviathan. Most of my career has been in the private sector, but I have been through the revolving door twice, leaving for more pay each time. (I also have a low threshold for boredom and am usually ready to leave a job by the time I get it figured out.) I know many other people who have done the same. By the time you get to branch chief and SES levels, a lot of the federales are pretty sharp and have no difficulty in moving if they wish. But there are always risks involved with a job change. The risk averse tend to sit tight, and they find government an ideal home. They live in places like Annandale, McLean, and Falls Church in solidly upper middle class bedroom communities, and they live very well. I don't fault people who make that choice, as long as they don't complain about being underpaid. And most of them don't. They know they have a good deal. They have sacrificed salary for security, but that is their choice.

It is very hard to get an honest comparison of federal and private sector pay, both because of the differences in job security and benefits, and because of the tendency towards over-classification and padding of job descriptions in the OPM system. But that's a story for another day.

[Colorado Doug]

Nobody forces anyone to work for the federal government