We keep harping on this outrageous scandal of the pay inequity between government and private employees. This taxpayer rip-off has been going on for 40 years and NOTHING happened.

Our CTUP economist, EJ Antoni, notes that taxpayers are paying a 40% premium to state and local government employees over comparable private employees.  The data show that taxpayers pay public sector employees 23% higher salaries and a whopping 79% higher benefits than private employers. This doesn’t even include the value of lifetime tenure (i.e. you can’t get fired from a government job no matter how poor your performance).