Federal workers provide vital services to the public

[godai]

Last week, USA Today had a sensational front page story implying that Federal employees earn about twice as much (salary and benefits) as private employees. The truth is that Federal employees have good, not great benefits (retirement is now SS plus a matching savings account, health insurance is good) but equivalent public sector jobs have higher salaries. Today, way back in the letters to the editor, with a confusing title based on the content, is a response which points out the errors in the original article. Let's identify the original article for what it was, republican propaganda.

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...Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data that show federal sector workers earn 22% less than private sector workers doing similar jobs.

The reporter instead relied on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which openly acknowledges that its information provides a distorted comparison between the federal and private sectors. These BEA factors were provided to the reporter, who apparently chose to ignore them.

The mix of occupations in the federal sector is much different from the entire private sector. The government has far more professional positions, with on-average higher education levels. The private sector, meanwhile, employs a higher percentage of service workers. In the federal sector, 51% of employees have a college degree, compared with only 35% in the private sector.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/letters/2010-08-16-letters16_ST1_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip


original article - http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/income/2010-08-10-1Afedpay10_ST_N.htm