Reply #11: It's not made clear, but I think it's the annual compensation per employee [View All]

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It shows, for example, that a general attorney who works for the federal government costs an average of $175,000 a year in salary and benefits. Someone with equivalent qualifications in the private sector costs an average of $220,000. But a private contractor doing the same work for the government costs an average of $550,000 a year.

In some cases, the federal employee makes more than the private sector employee -- with the biggest difference being for correctional officers, because private prisons notoriously pay barely more than minimum wages (which is one of the biggest complaints about them.) But in every case the outside contractor costs more, and sometimes much more.