The Economist: “One of the memes being thrown around over the past few years by advocates of reducing the power of public-sector unions has been the claim that public-sector workers are overpaid in comparison to their private-sector counterparts. I’ve always considered this an odd claim to hear, as I’ve been in the labour market for quite a long time and can’t recall ever hearing anyone say they were going to work for a government bureaucracy because they wanted to make a lot of money. At crucial career-making junctures in life, people who want to get rich tend to enter corporate law rather than join the District Attorney’s office, to work for internet companies rather than teach math in public high schools, and so forth.”

• Via Economic Policy Institute: Ohio public-sector workers are undercompensated compared with private-sector counterparts – February 18, 2011: Full-time state and local government employees in Ohio are undercompensated by 6.0%, when compared with otherwise similar private-sector workers.”
• Wisconsin public versus private employee costs: Why compare apples to oranges? Jeffrey H. Keefe, February 15, 2011: “…we find that Wisconsin public employees earn 4.8% less in total compensation than comparable private sector workers. The comparisons—controlling for education, experience, hours of work, organizational size, gender, race, ethnicity, citizenship, and disability—demonstrate that full-time state and local public employees earn lower wages and receive less in total compensation (including all benefits) than comparable private sector employees.”