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FACT CHECK: Are federal workers overpaid?

2011-04-07 12:32:06

By SAM HANANEL, Associated Press

WASHINGTON Are federal employees overpaid?

Republican leaders in Congress think so, and they are calling for an overhaul

of the entire federal pay system to help slash government spending.

Democrats and other defenders of the government work force say federal workers

are actually underpaid compared with their private counterparts.

A closer look at the data shows that both sides have a point but that

supporters of federal workers are a bit closer to reality. The debate has

heated up since the GOP budget blueprint unveiled this week calls for federal

pay "to be reformed to be in line with the private sector." It says average

wages "far eclipse" those in the private industry.

At a congressional hearing last month, Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Fla., said the

average federal worker earns $101,628 in total compensation including wages

and benefits_ compared with $60,000 for the average private employee. He was

citing data from the federal Office of Personnel Management.

"Our taxpayers can no longer be asked to foot the bill for these federal

employees while watching their own salaries remain flat and their benefits

erode," said Ross, chairman of the House Oversight subcommittee on the federal

work force.

But federal employee advocates claim a straight-up comparison of average total

compensation is misleading. A disproportionate number of federal employees are

professionals, such as managers, lawyers, engineers and scientists. Over the

years, the federal government has steadily outsourced lower-paying jobs to the

private sector so that blue-collar workers cooking meals or working in

mailrooms now make up just 10 percent of federal employees.

That argument is backed up by a 2002 study of the nonpartisan Congressional

Budget Office. It found that federal salaries for most professional and

administrative jobs lagged well behind compensation offered in the private

sector.

The CBO study concluded that the best way to measure the difference is to

compare government jobs with those in the private sector that match the actual

work performed. The CBO found that salaries for 85 percent of federal workers

in professional and administrative jobs lagged their private sector

counterparts by more than 20 percent.

Among lawyers, for example, the average pay in the federal government was about

$127,500 a year in 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The

average lawyer in the private sector earned $137,540. And the starting salary

at large law firms in Washington, D.C. where most government lawyers work

is $160,000, and can grow to hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, according

to the National Association for Law Placement.

At the lower end of the pay scale, the CBO said 30 percent of federal employees

in technical and clerical fields earned salaries above those doing comparable

work in the private sector. But the differences were mostly within about 10

percent plus or minus of private levels.

The government does offer, on average, more generous benefits to workers than

the private sector. OPM data shows the federal employees earned an average of

$27,317 in pension and health benefits in 2010. That's more than double the

average private sector benefits of $10,589, according to statistics from the

federal Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The CBO report pointed to what it called a "long-standing concern" with the

federal pay system it allows no variation in pay raises based on occupation.

That means federal workers in professional and administrative jobs may get

smaller pay increases than needed to match the private sector, while technical

and clerical workers get higher raises than needed.

President Barack Obama is seeking a two-year federal pay freeze, but that's not

enough for some Republicans. The GOP budget plan offered this week by House

Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., would impose a five-year pay

freeze on federal employees, cut the federal work force by 10 percent and

increase employee contributions to retirement plans.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government

Reform Committee, said he wants to see Obama's pay freeze include a ban on step

increases automatic adjustments within pay grades that are part of the

federal pay system.

OPM Director John Berry says eliminating step increases would hasten the

departure of valuable federal employees for the private sector.

Asked about the prospect of federal employees losing their jobs in the push to

curb government spending, House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio angered Democrats

earlier this year when he said, "So be it."

"I don't want anyone to lose their job, whether they're a federal employee or

not," Boehner said. "But come on, we're broke."