Topic: CNSNews.com
Nicholas Ballasy -- the CNSNews.com ambush reporter who we last saw getting pwned by Barney Frank -- tells about his latest gotcha attack in a Feb. 1 article:
Four senators who say they want to cap federal spending over the next 10 years declined to say whether they would support cutting the wages of even a single federal employee.
Federal workers in 2009 made an average of $123,049 in salary and benefits, which is more than twice the average of $61,051 that workers made in the private sector, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
But the idea that federal workers make twice as much as private-sector employees is not a meaningful analysis. FactCheck.org points out two serious flaws with the BEA analysis Ballasy is citing:
- The BEA figure is inflated by including compensation that is actually paid to benefit retirees, not just for current workers. The figure is at least several thousand dollars too high, by FactCheck's calculations.
- The average federal civilian worker is better educated, more experienced and more likely to have management or professional responsibilities than the average private worker.
Further, according to FactCheck, other studies have found that while lower-skilled federal workers make more than private sector workers (but not as much as the flawed numbers Ballasy cites), high-skilled federal workers make less.
