This morning's Duluth News Tribune had an editorial on hiring an outside firm to negotiate contracts, "Duluth can tap expert to negotiate 'modern' contracts"
Chuck Frederick quoted from Forbes that state and local government employees average $25.30 an hour while private sector employees average $19 an hour.
See "Gilt-Edged Pensions".
The Forbes article makes a better case than this that many public employees may be grossly overpaid, but using the above hourly wage statistic is bad mathematics. It is like comparing a police officer's pay to a mall security guard's pay. There is a vast difference in expectation and training. It is like comparing the pay of manufacturing company employees to the pay of retail company employees. There is a big difference in skills and training.
What should be considered is the pay of similar jobs, not all jobs in one group vs. all jobs in another group. Governments have a higher percentage of police officers, firefighters, heavy equipment operators, and judges than the rest of society. Governments have a lower percentage of servers and retail clerks.
I think every newspaper writer should have a copy of John Allen Paulos' "A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper" on his or her desk.
See also "Wouldn't you think the Washington Post would know infinitely better?"
