I have heard the argument that public sector employees make less than the private sector for many years. Years (40 +/-) ago that may have been true. I’m not sure that has been true for many years.
When today’s benefits are considered, things would appear to change.
Health insurance - until recently most public sector employees were paying little or nothing for it. I remember NH state employees freaking out a few years ago when the state bumped their contribution a couple of hundred $. At the time I was paying about $700/month for a company provided family plan w/a $5000 deductible.
Vacation time: Several public sector employees I knew were getting 6, 8, 10 weeks paid for working comparable times to me. I was getting 3.
“Comp” time: public sector employees were getting 1 hour comp time (to be used as additional vaca or bought out) for every hour they worked beyond 40 even though they were salaried. I was salaried and worked until the job was done for no additional compensation.
Retirement: I had an IRA & a 401k (which the company stopped matching when last financial crisis hit). Some of my public sector friends are making close to 100k/yr out of their pensions (god bless them)
Raises: I was lucky to get 1.5%. Some years none if the business couldn’t afford it. Most of my public sector friends were seeing double that.
During the “financial crisis” I was getting a day a week off w/o pay so the company could avoid laying people off. State employees were bitching that they were getting furloughed a day a month.
Oh, and by the way, my base salary was within 20 to 25k of my public sector friends. Who was doing better? Guess it depends on your prospective.
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