Let's lay this myth to rest once and for all!

We've all heard the statements by public officials. Gov. Scot Walker of Wisconsin said "we can no longer live in a society where the public employees are the haves and taxpayers who foot the bills are the have-nots." He also said that his state "cannot grow if our people are weighed down paying for a larger and larger government." His March 2011 budget address included the idea that Wisconsin's growth was being hindered by a "government that pays its workers unsustainable benefits that are out of line with the private sector."

In 2010, Senator Scott Brown of Mass. said "It's not right that lesser-paid private sector workers suffering through a recession have to pay for expensive government salaries."

Journalists Michael Fletcher and Brady Dennis (Washington Post) say that "...public employees often enjoy more generous pension and health-care benefits, and these are at the root of the long-term budget problems confronting many states."

David Brooks, conservative columnist for the NY Times argues that "public sector unions can use political power to increase demand for their product."

The "Publisher's notebook" piece which was the subject of the last blog post opined: "...other problems stem from the public-sector contracts that keep labor costs in our state, county, schools and municipalities out of whack with the private sector."

So, to sum up-

1. Public sector compensation is out of line with that in the private sector.

2. Public sector pay and benefits are the major cause of the financial difficulties being visited upon the states.

3. Public sector unions, through their political influence, are exacerbating state and local financial problems.

Here's the problem with these statements: They are all statements that "everybody knows" to be true. How do we know that? Because we have heard them repeated again and again. But here's the rub: They are all demonstrably wrong! So, let's get about the business of doing the demonstrating.

To keep blog posts to readable lengths, we'll do this over several posts.

Let's begin by looking at the state-by-state differential between private- and public-sector workers. These figures include both wages and benefits. The source is a recent USAToday article on the subject. A positive difference means that the average public employee earns MORE than the average private-sector worker, while a negative difference means the average public-sector earns LESS than the average private-sector worker.

Rank	State	Difference
1	Nevada	$17,815.00
2	Rhode Island	$17,603.00
3	Hawaii	$12,243.00
4	Florida	$9,099.00
5	California	$7,977.00
6	Connecticut	$7,687.00
7	South Carolina	$7,590.00
8	Montana	$7,396.00
9	Maryland	$6,931.00
10	New Jersey	$6,681.00
11	Michigan	$6,436.00
12	Iowa	$6,178.00
13	Vermont	$5,811.00
14	New Mexico	$5,715.00
15	Oregon	$5,607.00
16	Alabama	$5,001.00
17	Maine	$4,912.00
18	Mississippi	$4,713.00
19	Arizona	$4,310.00
20	Arkansas	$4,196.00
21	West Virginia	$3,655.00
22	Nebraska	$3,130.00
23	Wyoming	$3,116.00
24	Delaware	$2,911.00
25	Idaho	$2,855.00
26	Alaska	$2,764.00
27	Utah	$2,611.00
28	Louisiana	$2,473.00
29	Ohio	$2,392.00
30	Kentucky	$2,313.00
31	South Dakota	$1,909.00
32	North Carolina	$1,857.00
33	Wisconsin	$1,802.00
34	New York	$1,699.00
35	Oklahoma	$1,667.00
36	Pennsylvania	$1,567.00
37	Minnesota	$1,259.00
38	Indiana	$1,183.00
39	Washington	$532.00
40	Illinois	$485.00
41	D.C.	$457.00
42	North Dakota	$389.00
43	Tennessee	-$765.00
44	Missouri	-$1,075.00
45	New Hampshire	-$1,876.00
46	Virginia	-$2,328.00
47	Kansas	-$3,229.00
48	Colorado	-$3,391.00
49	Texas	-$3,580.00
50	Georgia	-$3,875.00
51	Massachusetts	-$4,688.00
	Total United States	$2,511.00

We can draw at least two conclusions from these figures-

1) New York is much farther down the table than many would have us believe. At number 34 out of 51, the average public-sector worker earns about $32/week more than the average private-sector worker. That's hardly enough to allow the difference to be called "out of whack."

2) The table seems to confirm the argument that public-sector compensation (with the exception of 9 states) is greater than that for the private sector.

Well, not really. And therein lies a story about reporters who can do arithmetic and Ph.D's who can do research. And that's where our next post will begin.