The Sacrifices of Being a Public Servant

It's a truism inside the beltway that government employees accept lower salaries for doing the same job for the sake of service to their country.

But clearly the tradeoffs aren't nearly so clear. As we've discussed in recent weeks, government employees have job security that is unheard of in the private sector, and we know the benefits are excellent. Now a report by USA Today suggests that in terms of both pay and benefits, public employees are outstripping their private counterparts. Further, because there is no incentive for government to tighten it's belt during a recession, the gap is widening:

Public employees earned benefits worth an average of $13.38 an hour in December 2008, the latest available data, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) says. Private-sector workers got $7.98 an hour. Overall, total compensation for state and local workers was $39.25 an hour — $11.90 more than in private business. In 2007, the gap in wages and benefits was $11.31. ...

For every $1-an-hour pay increase, public employees have gotten $1.17 in new benefits. Private workers have gotten just 58 cents in benefits for every $1 raise. ... Government paid an average of $8,800 annually toward employee medical insurance. Private companies paid $4,100.

Your taxes, hard at work.