Federal Personnel: Federal/Private Sector Pay Comparisons
Abstract
The federal government's official surveys of the pay-wages and salaries of federal and private sector employees have indicated that federal pay has lagged behind prevailing levels for comparable jobs in private enterprise and that the pay gap has grown over the last 2 decades. However, these official estimates of the pay gap have been subjected to criticism in both academic circles and in the media. Critics argue that the official methodology for performing pay comparisons is defective and that data from sources other than the official surveys, when analyzed using a different methodology, lead to a different conclusion-that federal pay levels are higher than prevailing levels for employees with comparable characteristics, such as education and work experience, in private enterprise. In view of these opposing conclusions, we identified two possible explanations for the discrepancy between official estimates of the federal private pay gap and those of the critics. We then performed a statistical analysis to determine the empirical significance of these explanations for estimates of the pay gap. Our analysis does not address whether and to what extent federal employees are under- or overpaid.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 1994
- Accession Number
- ADA303765
Entities
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office