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Federal News Radio
Are federal
employees overpaid or underpaid? The answer: Yes
By Mike Causey
February 22, 2016
Depending on whose numbers you believe, federal workers are either
overpaid by 34 percent or underpaid by 25 percent compared to the
private sector, give or take a few percentage points.
So which is it: Yes or no? Do government engineers make more or less
than private-sector engineers? Depends.
Does a psychiatrist or psychologist working for Uncle Sam do better or
worse than fellow graduates who went private? Again it depends.
Do fast food cooks, parking lot attendants, dog walkers and auto
detailers (not auto dealers) and chimney sweeps make more in or out of
government? Wait a minute, bad question. Although the White House has a
large kitchen staff, very few other federal agencies have a roster of
burger flippers — or custodial employees. They may have them, but
usually they are supplied by the private sector on contract to the
agency.
The kind of jobs Uncle Sam doesn’t have — often low paid — is one
reason federal pay on average is so much higher. The reason: Uncle Sam
doesn’t do retail.
One of the many problems in comparing federal vs. private-sector pay is
where do you start? And what do you compare? If you go by averages
Uncle Sam is king. The average federal civil servant makes a lot more
than the average American.
But when you do a job-for-job rating, the differences narrow. Even by
sex. While there has long been a glass ceiling holding women back in
government and the private sector, it is cracking all over the place.
And unlike the private sector where women doing the same jobs as men
were (sometimes still are) paid less than their male counterparts, a GS
11 step 5 makes the same whether the occupant is a man or a woman. The
director of the Office of Personnel Management, the FBI or the
Secretary of the Interior makes the same salary whether they are male
or female.`
When critics of federal pay want to score points, they talk about total
compensation. That is salary PLUS perks. In which case, feds usually
come out on top. That’s because of the vacation (annual leave) which
many small private operations don’t offer. And sick leave and all those
federal holidays. Few private firms offer what the government does.
Many of those who permit employees a limited number of sick days don’t
allow those employees to accumulate them, much less apply it toward
retirement. The government does.
Both the Carter and Clinton administrations pushed for the “total
compensation” concept, meaning that federal pay raises should be based
on comparing the value of the total pay-perks package in government
against total compensation in the private sector.
Deciding what to compare is one thing. Deciding who to compare it with
is another.
Next to the federal government, Wal-Mart is the largest employer in the
U.S. In 2013 it had about 2.2 million workers, 1.3 million of them in
the U.S. But while everybody (just about) loves the big box store, what
does it have in common with the federal government? Wal-Mart has great
stuff at great prices, but it doesn’t have a NASA, or a CIA or National
Institutes of Health division.
Yum! Brands is another major employer, but it’s a fast food operation.
So is McDonald’s. Then there is Home Depot, Kroger, Target, UPS (not
the USPS).
IBM is one of the relatively few top American employers with many jobs
comparable to those in the federal service. Certainly comparisons
should be made to make sure Uncle Sam isn’t paying his people too much
— or too little. All that’s needed is a yardstick, a chart and some
umpires both sides will agree to and accept.
Good luck with that!
Read this and other articles at Federal News Radio
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