Federal Workers Earning Double Their Private Counterparts

As if the salaries of the City of Los Angeles workers weren't enough to send me over the edge, we have USA Today reporting the salaries of federal workers DOUBLE the salaries of their counterparts in the private sector. My favorite quote from the story is that of Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, who says "The data are not useful for a direct public-private pay comparison." Really! The article also states that "public employee unions say the compensation gap reflects the increasingly high level of skill and education required for most federal jobs".  When was the last time you interfaced with a federal employee and experienced that "high level of skill and education"?


Bottom line: Federal compensation has grown 36.9% since 2000 after adjusting for inflation, compared with 8.8% for private workers. How about that!