Replies

WTH? Wonder if someone will do a fact check on those numbers.

He has links to the sources. The amount for average top executive pay comes straight from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment Statistics Survey.

The amount for average federal employee compensation comes from the US Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis. What he doesn't make clear (but his source, Chris Edwards at the CATO Institute does) is that it is average total compensation, not salary. The average salary is $88,809.

Also, the executive number is a median, while the federal employee number appears to be a mean. I am not sure how big a difference that makes, but it is not a straight comparison. Between this and the difference between salary and total comp, this really is an apples-to-oranges comparison.

That said, most top executives probably do not have as lucrative benefits as most federal employees. Also, even though many top executives of small businesses are also owners of those businesses, most of the ones I know don't really pay themselves dividends or distributions, but pay themselves in salary and bonuses for tax purposes. So it is possible that their total compensation is not much more than their salaries.

So I think there are a lot of questions you can ask about the accuracy of this article. If you are trying to say that the average federal employees make a larger salary than the average top executive, that is not true based on the numbers this author cites. Their total compensation could be higher, but the cited sources just don't give us the data to say so.

Having said that, I do think we can say with confidence that, based on the government's numbers, the average federal employee receives similar, if not more, total compensation than the average top executive in the private sector, and that is a profound enough point, though maybe not as easy to put into a soundbite.