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Federal Workers Are Underpaid Compared To Their Private Sector Counterparts, Despite GOPs Assertions
By Travis Waldron
To hear Republican presidential primary candidates tell it, the federal workforce under President Obama has experienced ballooning job growth and huge wage increases. Such claims are a staple of Rep. Michele Bachmanns (R-MN) stump speeches, and for months, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) has promised to bring the rest of the workers pay into line with comparable employees in the private sector.
Speaking at the Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity annual summit Friday, Romney repeated this pledge, saying the pay gap between public and private workers must be corrected. Public servants shouldnt get a better deal than the taxpayers they work for, Romney added.
But if Romney truly wants to match the pay of public employees to that of private workers, he would have to give the federal workers a raise, according to a new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And such a raise wouldnt be a small one according to the report, federal workers are underpaid compared to their private sector counterparts by an average of 26.3 percent, and that gap is widening, the Washington Post reports:
More: Federal Workers Are Underpaid Compared To Their Private Sector Counterparts, Despite GOP's Assertions | ThinkProgress