It seems no one is happy with the federal pay system. Many employees and federal unions argue that federal employees are significantly underpaid. But not everyone agrees. The average federal employee in 2007 received a pay and benefits package of $116,450–more than twice as much as the average private sector employee.
What is the value of the compensation package for the average federal employee in 2006? Would you believe $111,180?
Merit pay is rampant in the private sector. In the federal government, equal pay raises across the board are the norm although a report issued in 2006 shows that federal employees have not fared too badly. The systems are different and pay and the sources of job satisfaction are unlikely to ever match up.
How does your pay and benefits package compare to the private sector? New statistics compiled by a researcher at the Cato Institute is based on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and shows that the average federal employee makes exactly double that of the average private sector employee.
There is a continuing debate about the pay of federal employees–too high or too low or about right? With the large variety of federal jobs, there is no one right answer but the internet may give readers a feel for what their value would be on the open market.
A new report says “[t]he federal civilian workforce has become an elite island of secure and high-paid workers, separated from the ocean of private-sector American workers who must compete in today’s dynamic economy.”
