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| Congressional Budget Office |
Assuming 2000 hours per year, the average Federal employee with a high school diploma (or less) earned $117k in total compensation (wages + benefits) in 2022. That compares to a private-sector employee whose total compensation was $84k. Posed another way, a Federal employee's compensation "package" was worth about 40% more than that of his high school graduate, private sector counterpart.
The Federal employee was also 75% LESS likely to change employers than his private sector counterpart. Attrition is a metric that is closely watched in the private sector. If attrition is too high, then the wages + benefits package is too small. If the attrition rate is too high low, then you are paying too much relative to the prevailing market.
One thing that is not clear from the report is whether the military is included in the numbers. If it is, than the Federal civilian workforce with high school diplomas would likely seem even more lopsided as military enlisted don't get paid squat.
The second set of silos, high school graduate with some college but less than a Bachelor's degree show almost as stark of a contrast.
Federal employees with a Bachelor's degree or a Master's degree are near parity with the Bachelor holder with the Federal job doing a little bit better for total compensation than his private-sector counter part and just a little bit worse if he has a Master's degree.
The only place where the private sector significantly exceeds Federal employment is at the Professional (doctors, lawyers) and Ph.D. level.
Total employment by level
- High school diploma or less: 603,221
- Some college: 365,367
- Bachelor's degree: 599,799
- Master's degree: 383,901
- Doctorate/Professional: 85,140
Resistance to D.O.G.E.
The Blob's terror in the face of DOGE is understandable. In terms of total compensation, they are looking at a $16/hr pay hit.
The other thing that should terrify a Federal employee with a high school diploma is...the difficulty in justifying their duties as "knowledge work" that can be done at home. If they are not "clocked into" the facility, then how do they justify the hours they are recording as "worked"?
Second paragraph, last two sentences are both for attrition too high. Shouldn't one be high and one be low?
ReplyDeleteGood catch. Thanks. Fixed it.
DeleteI know you were talking about federal employees but something I found very valuable as a state employee was job security. There was little chance of overtime but even less chance of layoff. I've been retired 11 years and cant tell you what the current situation is with State of Michigan employment. It wasn't great money, I have a MA and didn't reach $70K until my last year. Add 50% for benefits $105K wasn't bad, but it sure was steady. I found the insecurities of industry and sales very distressing.
ReplyDeleteERJ, I will be sincerely interested to see how this works out. Especially if we are entering hard economic times, arguments that the civil service should be immune will fall on deaf ears.
ReplyDeleteOr, I suppose, folks could start a "Go Fund Me" to support those sort of employment numbers...
Trump's declared intention for federal employment in the US is in stark contrast to the UK situation, where we have a government with an allegedly massive black hole in its finances spraying money at the public sector with inflation busting pay rises. With the ensuing tax rises, any hope of growth in the economy is pure fantasy.
ReplyDeleteThe military is not included in that scale. Joe is correct, much of the 'lure' is job security. Once in, it is almost impossible to get fired.
ReplyDeleteMy SIL works for Bechtel, a big gov't contractor (2 TVA nuke sites nearby). Over the holiday she was lamenting the coming situation w/ Trump and Musk. She figures she'll be out of her cushy-job in the next 6 months, started looking into a transfer that appears safer to her.
ReplyDeleteOne thing NOT shown here is the proportion of employees in each category.
ReplyDeleteIn my experience, there are very few government employees with only a high school diploma.
One agency I worked in required at least a bachelor's degree for any position, even for a receptionist (don't forget that many "lower end" positions are filled by contractors).
Also, I'd be interested in seeing relative pay levels geographically - it seems to me that big cities have higher graded positions than more rural areas. (This is their GS or equivalent grade, not counting locality pay).
Jonathan
P.S. As mentioned above, job security is a big draw for government employees.
The section Total Employment by Level was taken from this site: https://www.fedsmith.com/2024/04/29/cbo-report-total-federal-employee-compensation-higher-than-private-sector/
DeleteThe author claims that there are approximately 600k employees with a HS diploma or less and approximately 600k employees with Bachelors degrees.