Why do US Government Employees Make more then the Average American?

Many in the media take shots at Federal Employees on a regular basis over salaries.  The media members taking these shots compare the average income of a federal employee and the average income of all Americans.  There have been numerous studies that show that Federal Employees make anywhere from 30% to 60% more than the average American.  There are a number of issues with these comparisons:

1.  Federal employees do is very different work from that of the average American.  
   • The most common job Americans hold is Retail Sales Associate – they don’t exist in the federal government.
   • The most common job title in the US government is an Administrator (5% of the federal work force) not really something we can find in the US job market outside the government.
   • There are ones in common, as an example, the second most common job in the US Government is a Nurse, the fifth most common American job.  
2. Many federal employees are concentrated in high cost/salary areas like Washington DC region and Southern California, 25% of the work force is in these two areas.
3. The average federal employee is older and more experienced.  Working for the government tends to hold people because of the security – federal government unlikely to close.
4. The average federal employee has more education than the average American Worker.  

The following table shows the 10 most common American jobs

Keep in mind that over the last 40 years many of the administrations have been privatizing large swaths of the government.  Most low pay jobs are done by contractors, not government personnel.  Now compare the table above with the table below that shows the most common jobs in the federal government.

As far as the rest of the reasons that the average government employee makes more than the average American, one only has to look at the site www.payscale.com and you will find that the four things that effect Salaries are: job, experience, location, and skill.  Federal employees generally are at the upper end of all of these measures, and that is why they get paid more than the average American.