Report Finds Range in Pay Gaps

The Congressional Budget Office has reported that federal workers in certain professional and administrative jobs “tend to hold jobs that paid less than comparable jobs in private firms” and that the pay gap is more than 20 percent for 85 percent of those employees. However, CBO also found that about 30 percent of employees in selected technical and clerical occupations held jobs with salaries above those paid by private firms. In general, jobs in technical and clerical occupations showed much smaller differences in pay, with about three-quarters with salaries within 10 percent, plus or minus, of private sector levels, CBO said. The report didn’t attempt a fully comprehensive comparison, focusing on 18 occupations in 17 localities involving about 50,000 employees. The comparison focused on the actual work performed, rather than on the titles and classification of the jobs.