Public employees provide more for less

By Ian Gunsolley

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In this time of budget crunches, why should my taxes go to fatten the wallets of state and local public employees? This is the question that some policymakers and pundits who are hostile to public employees want us as citizens to start asking.

Unfortunately it's not that simple, and by framing budget problems as an “Us versus Them” argument, public employee opponents actually hurt our economy by failing to convey the benefits of paying public workers.

Let's dispel the portrayal that public employees are milking extravagant wages and benefits out of the taxpayer.

Jobs in the public sector typically require more education than private-sector positions. State and local employees are twice as likely to hold a college degree or higher as compared to private sector employees. Only

23 percent of private-sector employees have completed college, as compared to about 48 percent in the public sector.

Wages and salaries of state and local employees are lower than those for private-sector employees with comparable earnings determinants, such as education and work experience. State workers typically earn 11 percent less and local workers

12 percent less. During the last 15 years, the pay gap has grown.

Benefits make up a slightly larger share of compensation for the state and local sector. But even after accounting for the value of retirement, health care and other benefits, state and local employees earn less than private-sector counterparts. On average, total compensation is

6.8 percent lower for state employees and 7.4 percent lower for local employees than for comparable private sector employees.

“In an apples-to-apples comparison, state and local government employees receive less compensation than their private-sector counterparts,” said Keith Bender, report co-author and associate professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “These public-sector employees earn less than they would earn if they took their skills to the private sector.”

So we're often getting higher qualified, more experienced employees for less than what the private sector pays. This is important since most services provided by public employees are considered necessary. If you weren't paying a public employee to do the job, you would have to pay someone else.

And if private firms end up paying more in wages and also must eke out a profit, it's hard to see how privatization would be a less costly alternative.

We must look deeper and resist easy-sounding answers to make sure that we don't hurt Iowans more than we help them.

Ian Gunsolley is communications chair of AFSCME Local 183, Iowa City. Comments: iang@afscmelocal183.org.