Colleen M. Kelley is president of the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents 150,000 workers in 31 government agencies.
As a longtime member of the Federal Salary Council, which studies and makes recommendations to the executive branch on federal pay, I take issue with some of the methodology and conclusions in this week’s Congressional Budget Office report comparing federal employee compensation to that in the private sector.
The CBO concluded that the most highly educated and highly paid federal employees are underpaid by more than 20 percent compared with employees with similar “characteristics” in the private sector. Those with college degrees — which the bulk of the federal workforce has — are about on par with their private-sector counterparts; those with less than a college degree, the lowest-paid federal employees, are overpaid by about 20 percent, it found, and have more generous benefits than do their private-sector counterparts.
First, the CBO’s expertise is really in crunching numbers and applying the arcane rules of congressional budget scoring. In this report, it compared characteristics of the federal and private-sector workforces, rather than comparing jobs done in each sector. The latter is the approach of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which has consistently found a pay gap in favor of the private sector. The latest BLS report shows that gap to be an average of 26 percent.
Many have focused on the report’s comparisons of benefits. But the CBO admits these are “more uncertain than its estimates of wages.”
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said that the report shows “government bureaucrats in Washington continue to enjoy significant advantages over those whose tax dollars finance their compensation.” This seems to be an attempt to rally support for his efforts to slash pay for all federal employees.
But the employees that the report claims may be overcompensated are hardly those whom people would think of as “government bureaucrats in Washington.” No, these “bureaucrats” are among the lowest-paid federal employees, doing unglamorous but critical work around the country. They include border-security personnel, customer service representatives and food safety workers. And the main reason they come out ahead of their private-sector counterparts in the CBO report is because the federal government, as any responsible business should, provides basic benefits such as paid sick leave and health coverage.
The logical policy implications of the CBO conclusions would be to provide significant raises to the highest-paid federal employees, which would amount to $30,000 to $50,000 for annual salaries of $150,000 to $200,000. The union I lead represents some very highly educated and skilled attorneys, physicians and nuclear scientists in this pay range; we would support, but do not expect, such increases.
The federal pay system aims to find a balance between offering a fair and competitive wage, a secure retirement and a satisfying work environment for those who believe in public service. Especially for the most educated, highly skilled and highly compensated federal employees, the importance of the mission, the challenge of the work and the commitment to public service provide non-monetary incentives.
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