This thread promises to be long-lasting and of interest to many Piggs. It is an intriguing question and will grow in importance as curbing the exploding government debt takes priority.
Accordingly, let’s curb our shoot-from-the-hip knee-jerk contributions that merely inflame and cause the discussion to go downhill. Let’s especially not leap to conclusions based on anecdotes.
The opening post gave us all some hard facts that we can react to. Interpreting them is a good test of one’s objectivity and critical thinking skills.
Offhand, I’d observe that federal workers are generally higher educated than the average private sector worker, which accounts for a good share of the difference. In addition, getting a federal job requires far more vetting, testing, waiting, etc. to get in. Clearly the fringe benefits and job security are vastly superior, and this is easily documented. What is really subjective is whether federal (and state and local) workers work harder or not, and here reasoning from the anecdote can mislead us.
The best way to judge would be to compare closely similar government jobs to their match in the private sector–say clerks, secretaries, accountants, doctors, security workers, etc. My understanding of such studies is that the government workers get more in TOTAL compensation, including fringe benefits, retirement, vacations, etc, but not the wide variance quoted above.
Another observation is that decades ago, government workers at all levels did indeed make less than their private sector bretheren (and got generous non-monetary compensation as an offset), and in recent decades leap-frogged ahead in pay as well thanks to public sector unions. I predict a re-balancing in future years as voters demand a reset.