You?ll also have to wait a while to read the full-length online version of Jeff Jacoby?s Commentary article, ?What Public-Sector Unions Have Wrought.?
But I can offer a little snippet, which challenges the traditional notion that government workers get generous benefits and unique job security in exchange for accepting lower salaries than their private-sector counterparts.
Nationwide, according to BLS data for 2009, state and local government employees were paid an average wage of $26.01 per hour, which was 34 percent higher than the average private-sector wage of $19.39 per hour. Even more lopsided was the public-sector advantage in fringe benefits, such as health and life insurance, paid vacations and sick leave, and ? above all ? retirement income: state and local governments provided their workers with benefits valued, on average, at $13.65 per hour, a 70 percent premium over the average benefits package in the private sector.
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Yet when it comes to outearning Americans who labor in the private sector, state and local government employees are left in the dust by their counterparts at the federal level.
In 2008, the 1.9 million civilians employed by Uncle Sam were paid, on average, an annual salary of $79, 197, according to the Commerce Department?s Bureau of Economic Analysis. The average private employee earned just $49, 935. The difference between them came to more than $29,000 ? a disparity that has more than doubled since 2000.
Add benefits to the mix and the federal advantage is even more striking. Total federal civilian compensation in 2008 averaged $119,982 ? more than twice the $59,908 in wages and benefits earned by the average private-sector employee.
