Quote:
Originally Posted by scottw
•Pay. The average federal salary has grown 33% faster than inflation since 2000. USA TODAY reported in March that the federal government pays an average of 20% more than private firms for comparable occupations. The analysis did not consider differences in experience and education.
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I can tell you from my experience, where I'm working now, that the Government employees make a shade less than the private sector for the IT field. I work for an IT contractor and I make about 3% more than my equivelant government counterpart. My health insurance is also better and my contribution is roughly half of theirs. They do have it better in time off where they start w/ 15 days off and I started w/ 13...and they receive 13 sick days to my 5. I am Private sector versus the public sector (DOD).
I can also tell you that I am making less here than my last job in the private sector. So in my experience the Government is less than or equal too the private sector as far as pay. Not twice as much.
As I stated this is in the IT field so I can't vouch for other fields in Government.
As to the Monkeys and Peanuts analogy.....the IT field would be extremely affected by sub par pay and benefits. IT Guys notoriously move around in search of better pay/benefits, so if you didn't make things comparable to Private sector you would have an IT Workforce in the DOD that was made up of tech school graduates that probably wouldn't spend more than 2 years on the job before leaving. How efficient is that for an organisation to operate....6 months to ramp up your talent then they leave a year/year and a half down the road.