<p>I’m actually slightly encouraged by some of those statistics - even though they may appear bleak to others. :)</p>
<p>The gender gap is striking.</p>
<p>Also striking is the number of working college grads employed by the government (23.6%), and their salaries are about 90% of private pay.</p>
<p>Yes, Bay - I agree. Both striking. But I have to say that neither really surprised me.</p>
<p>Thanks for finding something besides Payscale. I’m not really surprised by the data either. The gov’t has great starting and early career salaries, definitely capped at the top. I think the gender gap may be due to the mommy factor - women who drop out of paid work to raise children.</p>
<p>The figures include workers of all ages over 25, correct? We are not looking only at starting and early career salaries, but the entire career-span of workers.</p>
<p>There are lots of different governments and lots of geographical areas for government pay. Federal government salaries are pretty good at the entry level, but as noted capped at the top and the higher you go the fewer jobs there are with big salaries. Most state and municipal government salaries are not so good except in places like NY or California where they could exceed Federal salaries. None of the big salaries in the government come near the big salaries in the private sector. Further, except for occasional awards, hard work and success in your job doesn’t necessarily result in an increase in salary.</p>
<p>This information is so broad and general as to be useless, and uninteresting. What good is it to know the median earnings of all English majors over 25, regardless of what additional degrees they have? How does that guide you if you are 18 and thinking about majoring in English Lit?</p>
<p>As for government vs. private sector salaries, it is not necessarily the case that government salaries are that much systematically less than private sector salaries at upper levels. That’s true for business and professions, sure. But think about the millions of people employed in education, or health care (not MDs). There isn’t a huge gap there, and in some cases public sector salaries may exceed private sector salaries. There are many areas where the alternative to government employment may be employment by a hand-to-mouth nonprofit. It is also the case, too, that government employment has benefits (like great pension rights . . . if only they were funded) that close the gap with private employers.</p>