Who's Bringing Home the Juicy Paycheck? The Surprising Numbers

Start with local government, whose 14 million employees make up almost two-thirds of the public payroll, according to Census Department data. They make up 11% of the total U.S. workforce but receive only 10% of the total compensation. Their average salary is $43,000.

State government employees make up 3.6% of the U.S. workforce and receive 3.9% of the total compensation.

Federal employees, who make up just two percent of the total U.S. workforce, do considerably better, earning an average of $68,000. Their pay advantage is largely due to higher education levels and more advanced professional skills. The Economic Policy Institute, Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Congressional Research Service, and Congressional Budget Office all acknowledge this. 44% of federal jobs are professional positions (lawyers, economists, engineers), compared with 32% in the private sector. Close to 50% of full-time federal and state and local government employees have college degrees, compared to 35% for private employees.

Overall, Census Department data reveals that government employees earn about 1% more than private sector employees. With all retirement benefits included, the 21.4 million government employees make up 16.7% of U.S. employees and receive 20% of the total compensation.

It's not union members..

After years of declining numbers, union employees make up about 12% of the workforce, but their total pay (14.8 million union employees with a $47,000 median salary) amounts to less than 12 percent of wages, as reported by the Census Department.

Unions are sometimes accused of excess, when in fact they keep employees from falling into substandard wage conditions. According to the State of Working America, the union wage premium exists, but it's a modest 13.6%.

Unions also provide a degree of stability for a shrinking middle class. Retirement funding, however, is actually much less than perceived by union critics. The Pew Center notes that the latest available annual pension contribution by the 50 states amounted to just under $60 billion, which is about 1% of wages as reported by the Census Department.

Finally, unions promote equal opportunity. A recent study at Harvard and the University of Washington concluded that "the decline of organized labor explains a fifth to a third of the growth in inequality."

It's not, for the most part, even the private sector..

The average private sector worker makes about the same salary as a state or local government worker. But the MEDIAN salary for U.S. workers, 83% of whom are in the private sector, is almost $14,000 less, at $26,363.

This striking difference reveals the degree of inequality in private industry, and leads us to the conclusion:

CEOs and Financial Managers take much more than their share.

Corporate executives and financial employees make up just one-half of 1% of the workforce, but with nearly a trillion dollars of annual income (11.3% of $8.12 trillion), they make more than ALL 15 million unionized workers in the United States, and almost as much as ALL 21 million government workers. Much of their income derives from minimally-taxedcapital gains. Meanwhile, the great majority of their private company employees toil as food servers, clerks, medical workers, and domestic help at below-average pay.

While unions and government jobs promote stability and security, private industry, which is driven by the profit motive, leads to a "winner-take-all" philosophy that is steadily splitting our country in two.

Have they earned it?

Again, consider the facts:

1. They've destroyed jobs. According to Newsweek, "the CEOs of the 50 firms that laid off the most workers since the onset of the economic crisis took home 42 percent more pay in 2009 than their peers did -- largely because cutting workers boosts short-term profits."
    
2. They've made the country less productive. As noted by Frontline's Money, Power, and Wall Street, the financial industry is almost double the size of the manufacturing sector.
    
3. They've taken massive bonuses for their failures. Again from Frontline's Money, Power, and Wall Street: Since the crash of 2008, banks have paid out more than $80 billion in bonuses.
   
   As an analyst pointed out on the Frontline documentary, the rise of financial derivatives led banks to start trading for their own gain, and not for their customers. So yes, they've earned something. Our lasting contempt.