"Even using all the standard controls—race and gender, full- or part-time work, firm size, marital status, region, residence in a city or suburb, and more—the federal wage premium stubbornly hovers around 12%, meaning private employees must work 13½ months to earn what comparable federal workers make in 12.
If the overall generosity of federal benefits matches that of federal salaries (which seems quite likely), total compensation for federal workers may easily exceed $14,000 per year more than an otherwise similar private employee.
A federal pay premium is unfair both to private workers, who receive less than their government peers, and to taxpayers who must cover the difference. Given our 2.7 million-strong federal work force, the government effectively overbills Americans by almost $40 billion every year just on labor costs."
~AEI's Andrew Biggs and Jason Richwine (Heritage) in today's WSJ
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