Generous Benefit Plans Leading Government Employees to Be Nearly 40 Percent More Expensive than Private Sector

Daily Caller News Foundation (Owen Klinsky), The Star News Network

Total compensation costs, including wages, salaries and benefits, averaged $43.94 per hour

for private sector employees, approximately 40% less than the $61.37 average hourly compensation cost for state and local government workers, according to the BLS data. The disparity was primarily driven by pricey government benefit plans, with costs averaging $13.04 per hour for private industry workers, over 80% less than the $23.57 per hour in benefit costs for their state and local government counterparts. “Gov’t work is a helluva gig!”