Without A Productivity Measure, Government-Private Pay Comparisons Are Misleading

A comment I posted on "Are Government Employees Overpaid? Still No." by Mike Konczal on Rortybomb:

Without a productivity measure, pay measurements are meaningless. For example, if three government engineers are needed to do the same work of two private sector engineers, then even at the same salaries and benefits, the government employees are overpaid.

In the private sector, it is fairly common to hear about someone skipping lunch, working late, coming in on a day off or postponing vacation to finish a project. How often does that happen in government?

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