CBO Report: Federal Employee Benefits Are Generous
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Benefits for federal civilian employees have been criticized as relatively
generous compared with private firms -- and the Congressional Budget Office
recently confirmed that they are. The CBO compared the dollar value of major
benefits a federal employee would receive to benefits received by a private
sector employee at the same level of pay, length of service and age.
Federal health, retirement, vacation, holiday, disability and retiree health
benefits as of 1996 were compared to similar benefits offered by 800 large
private-sector firms, rather than averages for private employees as a whole.
These firms employ almost 12 million workers, but differ in some respects
from businesses as whole -- for example, all 800 have some type of retirement
benefits.
- For most white collar employees, the CBO found federal benefits are
more generous, with the exception of benefits for those in higher-graded
and higher-skilled positions.
- The value of benefits ranged from 26 percent to 50 percent of pay for
a federal employee and from 24 percent to 44 percent of pay for an employee
of a large private firm.
- Depending on the employee's characteristics, the comparative value
of the benefits ranged from a federal disadvantage of about 2 percent of
pay to a federal advantage of about 7 percent of pay.
The study also found federal workers covered by the Federal Employees
Retirement System -- a defined-contribution plan for all employees hired
after 1983 -- have somewhat higher benefits than either private employees
or pre-1983 hires still covered by the defined-benefit Civil Service Retirement
System. And it noted that those federal employees who retired with full
benefits at age 55 after 30 years of service did especially well.
Source: "Comparing Federal Employee Benefits with Those in the Private
Sector," CBO Memorandum, August 1998, Congressional Budget Office,
Second and D Streets, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20515.
For text:
http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=821&sequence=0&from=7
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