Six Studies Examining Michigan, Other States Conclude Public Sector Workers Not Overcompensated
Six studies conducted in recent years examined total compensation of public versus private sector workers in Michigan, nationally and in specific states. Each study broadly reaches the same conclusions: public sector workers compared to private sector workers in jobs with comparable education qualifications are not overcompensated.
In fact, several studies conclude that if anything, public sector compensation now lags workers in the private sector. The researchers reached their findings by comparing workers with comparable education levels because, obviously, it would be unfair to compare the total compensation of attorneys or engineers in the private sector with, say, human service case workers or secretaries in the public sector, or engineers in the public sector to a cashier at the local grocery store.
The fairest and most accurate comparisons are reached by examining the total compensation of people who have comparable education levels, because education is the most accurate predictor of a person’s wage earning potential.
Three of the studies specifically focus on or mention Michigan: the November 2008 House Fiscal Agency study commissioned by then Speaker Andy Dillon, the Charles Ballard/MSU study from April 2009, and the “Out of Balance” report issued in April 2010.
Collectively, these studies disprove claims that public employees are wildly, or even moderately, over-compensated. Please know that Citizens for Accountability in Reform neither commissioned nor participated in the production of any of these studies.
Are New Jersey Public Employees Overpaid?
Economic Policy Institute
Civil Service Salary and Benefit Comparisons
Michigan House Fiscal Agency
Debunking the Myth of the Overcompensated Public Employee
Economic Policy Institute Briefing Paper
Out of Balance? Comparing Public and Private Sector Compensation over 20 Years
National Institute on Retirement Security
The Retrenchment of the State Employee Workforce in Michigan
Michigan State University Department of Economics/Federal Aviation Administration
The Truth about Public Employees in California
Institute on Labor and Employment
>>UPDATE: Go to “Michigan workers, teachers already have given roughly $4.7 billion in pay, benefit cuts,” an op-ed by Roger Martin published in the Sunday, Jan. 23, 2011 edition of the Lansing State Journal.
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