How do the earnings of government workers who are union members compare to the earnings of private-sector workers?

In 2010, median earnings of government workers who were union members were 25 percent higher than earnings of private workers.

However, two economists at the University of Wisconsin, Keith Bender and John Heywood point out that “government workers have jobs that demand more education, which is not accounted for by raw averages.”

Bender and Heywood did a study last year for the Center for State & Local Government Excellence, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, in which they concluded that “although a comparison of unadjusted average earnings will show that wages are higher among jobs in state and local government, this result is largely due to the fact that the workers in those sectors have more education.”

They said, “Holding education and other characteristics the same, typical state and local workers earn an average of 11 percent less and 12 percent less, respectively, than comparable private-sector workers.”

They also concluded that “the compensation of state and local workers is not excessive” and that “this remains true when including benefits.”

“People who go into the public sector — especially at the highest occupations that require a lot of education — are trading off stability for higher salaries,” said Kim Rueben, a public finance economist at the Urban Institute. That is, such highly educated workers could likely make more money in the private sector but wouldn’t enjoy as much job security.

“For lower educated workers, they actually do get a premium for being in the public sector, even on the wage side,” said Rueben.

How do the earnings of unionized government workers compare to the earnings of government workers who aren’t union members?
It depends on the level of government.

According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, for federal employees last year, the median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers who were union members were $977. But the median weekly earnings of full-time federal workers who weren’t union members were $1,040.

But for state workers, union members had median weekly earnings nearly 17 percent higher than non-union members, $922 compared to $769.

And for local government employees, the union differential was greater, 23 percent higher wages for union members than for non-union members.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41672854/ns/politics-more_politics/