The Times’s analysis found that, overall, median wages for state workers exceeded that of private-sector workers in all but three states — Indiana, Missouri and New Hampshire. Those overall numbers, however, can be deceptive. State workers tend to be more highly educated than those in the private sector: more than half of state workers possess college degrees, compared with just over one-quarter of those in the private sector. Researchers have also said that states tend to employ few high school dropouts.
“Because the public sector is much more likely to be highly educated, we would fully expect them to earn more on average because of that, just like we would expect somebody with a master’s degree to earn more than somebody with a high school education,” said Keith A. Bender, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, who has studied public- and private-sector compensation.
When workers are divided into two groups — those with bachelor’s degrees and higher and those without — a very different pattern emerges. State workers with college degrees earn less, often substantially less, than private-sector workers with the same education in all but three states — Montana, Nevada and Wyoming.
Less-educated workers on state payrolls, however, tend to do better than their counterparts in the private sector. The median wages of state workers without bachelor’s degrees are higher than those in the private sector in 30 states. California, New York, Connecticut and Nevada lead the way, each paying workers without degrees at least 25 percent more than the private sector pays those workers.
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