Federal Salaries - Another Look

Recently a number of TV and radio celebrities such as Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and others have made much of a Heritage Foundation “study” by James Sherk that claims Federal Government employees are overpaid and/or make far more than their private sector peers. Sean Hannity has stated repeatedly that federal government employees make 50 percent more than their peers. Do a Google search and you see the Heritage foundation claims federal workers are 30-40 percent overpaid. James Sherk’s abstract states “Salaries and benefits—for identical jobs—are 30 percent to 40 percent higher in the federal government than in the private sector.”

Sherk goes through some high powered analysis and uses data available from 2006-2009 for private sector employees. He then takes the most absurd cases to cite for government workers and leaves very false impressions. Are the cases he cites possible? Yes. Are they probable? No. What they are, however, are deceitful.

So let’s examine the veracity of Sherk’s claims. And I invite you to do exactly what I did (as Glenn Beck says, don’t believe me, don’t take my word for it, do the research for your self). First go to USAJOBS.COM and pick a locality and perform a job search. I chose Atlanta and Washington DC. I then selected jobs I am reasonably familiar with (Civil Engineer I, Civil Engineer supervisor II, Civil Engineer Supervisor III, Dentist, Secretary I, Senior Executive Secretary, Aircraft Mechanic, Budget Analyst, Security Guard, Electrician III, Statistician Locksmith, Legal Assistant I, Chemist IV, and Chemist V). I reviewed others but could not with certainty identify the equivalent job series, job requirements, and job skills so they were not included (and for the record using my “best guess” few of these varied much from those I have knowledge about). I then went to SALARY.COM and found the equivalent private sector job and got that information.


Here is an example of my process. A civil engineer I job is 0-2 years of experience. Civil engineers enter the federal sector as a GS-5 or GS-7 depending upon their class ranking and experience. I took the GS-7 step 1 (GS-7/1) as the average. The GS-5/1 comes in and probably becomes a GS-7/1 after a year of experience. Thus the GS-7/1 would typically have 1 year of experience and thus be the midpoint for the private sector comparable. In Atlanta GA, the average GS-7/1 civil engineer earns about $50,971 while the private sector equivalent’s salary is $55,757. Note that this private sector equivalent is actually lower than a fair comparison as company size makes a huge impact on salaries. Typically large companies pay 10-12 percent more than small companies.

So what were the results for these professions? Far, far different from what James Sherk found in his study and what Mr. Hannity claims on his show. Here is how my study came out:

Job Category / Private Salary($) / Federal Equivalent($)
Civil Engineer I / 55,757 / 50,971
Superv. Civil Eng II / 86,217 / 83,580
Superv. Civil Eng III / 103,106 / 102,493
Dentist / 133,551 / 110,000 (b)
Secretary I / 33,300 / 31,700 (b)
Executive Secretary/ 65,919 / 65,500
Statistician / 93,552 / 93,194
Aircraft Mech / 56,131 / 42,370 (c)
Budget Analyst / 83,250 / 74,300
Sr. Security Guard / 42,000 (b) / 36,346
Electrician III / 56,721 / 57,200
Locksmith / 47,382 / 54,080
Legal Asst I / 51,482 / 42,209
Chemist IV / 83,736 / 76,694
Chemist V / 94,734 / 88,350

Notes:
(a) Several engineering professions were checked and the results are reasonably similar. Federal engineers make about the same regardless of the profession series. This is doubly true for the level III or higher engineers and all supervisory engineers. There are two comparisons I have less comfort with and these are the locksmith and aircraft mechanic comparisons. The skill levels may not be exactly appropriate but one is high and the other is low so they should balance out.
(b) Estimated based upon salary range in lieu of exact table value
(c) May not be exact comparison, Federal Equivalent may be one grade too low

Examine the table above. In almost every case the Federal Equivalent job pays less than the private sector job. Keep in mind that private sector pay has fallen about 20 percent in most professions in the past year. And this is reflected in the salary.com website data.

You can make this comparison yourself – you don’t need to use 279,000 or so (out of date) data points like Mr. Sherk did. You can use real time data just like I did.

So let me close by saying to Mr. Hannity and Mr. Sherk the following two things. Federal employees will be happy to have their salaries adjusted to be equivalent to the private sector employees. And lastly, federal salaries were far, far under their private sector peers for the last decade so when you apply your great leveling idea this year to federal salaries make sure you do the same for the last 10 years or so – we would greatly appreciate the huge windfall it would give us.

And for the record, I have sought to contact Mr. Hannity, Mr. Limbaugh, and Mr. Sherk but have yet to receive a response or reply save Mr. Sherk’s out of office reply.