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This report from US-based Economic Policy Institute outlines how Public-sector employees earn less than their private-sector counterparts, and that pay gap has widened in recent years. But the pay gap is narrower in states where public employees have stronger collective bargaining rights.
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Key findings (US Example)
Nationally, the public-sector pay gap has widened in the last four years.
State and local government employees earned, on average, 17.6% less than similarly educated private-sector employees, compared with a pre-pandemic pay gap of 13.9%.
Even when factoring in more robust public-sector benefits packages, total compensation is approximately 14.5% lower for public-sector workers than for private-sector workers.
Collective bargaining rights for public employees vary widely across states, and this has an effect on pay gaps between public- and private-sector workers. When compared with private-sector workers, public-sector workers with strong bargaining rights (-14.9%) have a narrower pay gap than those with weak (-20.1%) or no bargaining rights (-22.9%).