So after all those years of hearing the argument that extraordinarily generous pension, holiday, vacation, and health care benefits for government employees were justified because they made lower salaries than private sector workers, the premise turns out not to be true. The Citizens Budget Commission draws our attention to recently released 2004 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They show that in the New York City region, fringe benefits aside, state and local government employees actually earn 15% more on average than private sector employees – $28.26 an hour compared to $24.62 an hour.

According to the data, which are available at both the CBC’s Web site and that of the Department of Labor, a government bookkeeper in the New York City region earns an average of $21.78 an hour; one working for a private company makes $17.32 an hour. Public school teachers make $44.11 an hour; private school teachers make $25.03 an hour. A government office cleaner earns $16.78 an hour; the person cleaning the office in the private company or building next door to the government office makes $12.63 an hour. The food-service worker in the local government hospital, school, or cafeteria earns $13.29 an hour; the one at your local diner earns $9.66 an hour.

“This data highlights the need for governments in the greater New York City area to rethink their fringe benefits packages for public employees,” said the president of the Citizens Budget Commission, Diana Fortuna. “The perception that public-sector wages are lower than those in the private sector has been used to justify relatively generous benefits packages. Those packages should now be brought more in line with the private sector.”

Ms. Fortuna has a point. But the implications of this finding goes far beyond the idea that fringe benefits for government employees should be brought closer to private-sector levels, while government workers keep raking in premium wages. If labor in the public sector is going to cost more than labor in the private sector, it is going to makes more sense for taxpayers in many cases to have the labor done in the private sector. We’re not suggesting turning, say, the police or the judiciary over to outside contractors. Many government employees, like police and firefighters, deserve to be paid generously for putting their lives on the line. But for jobs in which there is a robust private sector – say, hospitals, or food service, or buses – it’s simply throwing taxpayer money away to refuse to give private companies a chance to bid for work that is now being carried out by government workers.

The attention raised by the Citizens Budget Commission is especially timely because it comes at a moment when the New York State Public Employees Federation, a government employees group, is mounting an advertising campaign with the claim that “Private contractors and consultants are expensive, inefficient and unaccountable … Independent audits have proven over and over that state employees do the work better and for less.” Well, tell it to the Citizens Budget Commission and the U.S. Department of Labor. And to the private sector workers sweating it out every day so that their taxes can pay for government workers to earn more than they do to do the same job.