The Federal-Private Pay Imbalance

Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry has appointed a task force to come up with data that shows that federal employees do not earn higher average salaries than their private sector counterparts.

At a hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Berry responded to recent claims by organizations like the libertarian Cato Institute and media outlets like USA Today that workers in a range of jobs get paid more on average in the federal government than in the private sector.

For example, an article by USA Today published earlier this month said that federal workers earned an average salary of $67,691 in 2008 for occupations that exist in both government and the private sector, while average pay for the same jobs in the private sector in 2008 was $60,046. More specifically, IT jobs like computer information systems managers working for the federal government earned an average of $122,020, compared to average earnings of $115,706 in the private sector.

But Berry testified that such claims are based on misinformation, adding that the federal workforce has become more educated and specialized over the past 50 years, specifically in areas like cybersecurity, medical research, financial regulation and law enforcement. The recent claims are "not comparing like jobs with like jobs," he said. "Whenever you compare like jobs with like jobs and put the level of responsibility and the level of education that come with it, federal jobs are behind the private sector."

The task force will be examining whether an old formula that used Bureau of Labor Statistics data to compare federal and private sector pay should be reinstated to help the government make more careful analysis and comparisons. "There may be requirements to change this formula," Berry said. "I have appointed a task force to wrestle with this formula so that they can come forward and actually defend with iron-clad validity for you and the American public exactly what the facts are based on the data."

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, urged Berry to do a better job at getting the word out on what lawmakers and the American public perceive to be an imbalance of federal and private sector pay. "If there is an imbalance, that is a problem at this time of great budget strain," she said. "If there isn't, we need to make that case and explain why."