Private vs. Federal benefits and wages

[Deleted]

Who is better compensated is a debate I have seen on these boards a few times. I ran across an interesting chart on wages and benefits broken down by education level, which is helpful because federal employees tend to be better educated than private sector employees.

The Congressional Budget Office says today that federal workers are paid more than their private sector counterparts, mostly in benefits. One caveat: that applies to workers without a Ph.D. Highly educated workers in the federal government earn less than doctorates in the private sector.

Here’s CBO’s conclusion on total compensation, which includes wages and benefits:

— Federal civilian employees with no more than a high school education averaged 36 percent higher total compensation than similar private-sector employees.
— Federal workers whose education culminated in a bachelor’s degree averaged 15 percent higher total compensation than their private-sector counterparts.
— Federal employees with a professional degree or doctorate received 18 percent lower total compensation than their private-sector counterparts, on average.

Overall, the federal government paid 16 percent more in total compensation than it would have if average compensation had been comparable with that in the private sector, after accounting for certain observable characteristics of workers.

blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2012/01/30/its-official-federal-workers-are-paid-more/?tsp=1

[billisonboard]

Interesting little factoid from the study cited in the OP:

The federal government paid women higher wages, on average, than private-sector employers did but paid men similar wages.

Here is the link to the study:
cbo.gov/ftpdocs/126xx/doc12697/2012-03FedWagesWP.pdf