| Sumario: | Although workers in state and local governments have a higher average wage, professional and administrative workers generally earn more in the private sector. Payroll costs are a major expense for state and local governments, accounting for over 60 percent of all expenditures. Citing average pay rates and quit rates, critics contend that public workers are overpaid in comparison with private sector workers and that public agencies are overstaffed. Others argue that state and local governments provide services that require a better educated and more highly skilled workforce than exists, in general, in the private sector. Moreover, citizens expect government to lead by example, and studies show that state and local governments have acted more quickly than the private sector to remedy wage discrimination against women and minorities. The writer discusses current literature on the subject and compares wages and salaries in state and local governments with pay in nonfarm private industry by using occupational pay information from the BLS Occupational Compensation Survey Program.
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