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Second-guessing is so much harder than doing the actual work

March 07, 2010

It's hard for Treasury employee union boss Colleen Kelley to top herself in the absurd statement department, but by golly, she's done it again:

Overall, federal workers earned an average salary of $67,691 in 2008 for occupations that exist both in government and the private sector, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The average pay for the same mix of jobs in the private sector was $60,046 in 2008, the most recent data available. These salary figures do not include the value of health, pension and other benefits, which averaged $40,785 per federal employee in 2008 vs. $9,882 per private worker, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. ...

"The data flip the conventional wisdom on its head," says Cato Institute budget analyst Chris Edwards, a critic of federal pay policy. "Federal workers make substantially more than private workers, not less, in addition to having a large advantage in benefits."

But National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley says the comparison is faulty because it "compares apples and oranges." Federal accountants, for example, perform work that has more complexity and requires more skill than accounting work in the private sector, she says...

That's why Ms. Kelley fought so hard to keep the IRS from raising the accounting coursework requirement for new agents from 24 credit hours to 30. Because their accounting work is just so much harder than it is for the rest of us.

Texas requires 30 upper division course credits to sit for the CPA exam -- 30 hours beyond the two principles classes you have to take just to qualify for the upper division courses. That's typical of state exam requirements. Of course, students who take the 150 course hours required to sit for the exam often go well beyond the 30 upper division hours required.

But while the government employees they get paid more, they get better benefits too:

These salary figures do not include the value of health, pension and other benefits, which averaged $40,785 per federal employee in 2008 vs. $9,882 per private worker, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. ...

But remember, what the government people do with their 24 credit hours is harder, and so you should be happy to have your grandchildren pay extra taxes to cover their higher salaries and gilded benefits.