Many private employers also have excellent benefits and give you most federal holidays off. I work for a large technology company and I get 10 days off per year, 8 of which are federal holidays (instead of Veterans Day and Columbus Day, we get the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve). I also get two additional “floating holidays” of my choice. For PTO, I get about the same amount of paid time off as a federal employee at my same level, and I also have an additional two weeks of sick time. There are a lot of other perks and benefits I get at my job that are better than a federal job (for a minor one, I can wear casual clothes to work! For a bigger one, I set my own work hours - I currently work 9:30 to 6:00, but if I get in around 9:45 it’s not a problem.)
[url=https://www.accenture.com/us-en/careers/your-future-rewards-benefits]Accenture[/url], [url=http://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/careers/articles/life-at-deloitte-benefits-and-rewards.html]Deloitte[/url], [url=http://www.ey.com/US/en/Careers/Students/Life-at-EY]E&Y[/url], [url=http://www.pwc.com/us/en/careers/campus/why-pwc/employee-benefits.html]PwC[/url], and [url=http://us-jobs.kpmg.com/why-kpmg/benefits]KPMG[/url] all offer excellent benefits - time off that rivals the federal government, really low health premiums on good medical coverage, discounts on gyms and fitness memberships/equipment, parental leave, employee assistance programs, 24-hour health lines, low-cost insurance, the works!
What I would say do is investigate a wide range of employers - federal, nonprofit, private, whatever - by their benefits. Don’t assume that a company has better or worse benefits just because it sits in one class or the other; instead, ask your recruiter or interviewer or hiring manager what the benefits are for a given position/company/department.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the average salary for accountants and auditors is just over $67,000 a year (http://www.bls.gov/ooh/business-and-financial/accountants-and-auditors.htm). Accountants that work for government average $65,000, but that includes federal, state, and local government; state and local government accountants are going to make far less money than federal accountants. Also, federally, your pay is dependent upon where you work; certain higher-cost cities get locality pay on top of the base pay on the GS scale (but that’s to offset the higher cost of living in those areas, too).
One post from an accounting site posits that new accountants at Big 4 firms make around $50,000 to start out. But by about year 3-4, you’re closer to $70,000, and at around year 5-7 you’re at about $94,000. So you can certainly make $80K as an accountant, particularly at a Big 4 firm, and especially if you stick around long enough to go through the management chain.
Since I’m aware that the starting pay for most recent grads tends to be on the lower end, making $50,000 starting at a Big 4 is great!