Especially if you work for The Man, reports USA Today. Using Bureau of Labor Statistics data, Dennis Cauchon found:
Federal employees earn higher average salaries
than private-sector workers in more than eight out of 10 occupations … .Accountants, nurses, chemists, surveyors, cooks,
clerks and janitors are among the wide range of jobs that get paid more
on average in the federal government than in the private sector.Overall, federal workers earned an average salary
of $67,691 in 2008 for occupations that exist both in government and
the private sector, according to Bureau of
Labor Statistics data. The average pay for the same mix of jobs in
the private sector was $60,046 in 2008, the most recent data available.
These salary figures do not include the value of
health, pension and other benefits, which averaged $40,785 per federal
employee in 2008 vs. $9,882 per private worker, according to the Bureau
of Economic Analysis.
BONUS OBSERVATION: The BLS notes that the average weekly salary in the fourth quarter 2009 was $748 (or $38,896 annually). Meaning that federal workers receive more in fringe benefits than the typical U.S. worker gets in pay.
