Just the numbers: How much are public servants paid?

By Guest author. Few issues are more likely to provoke a row than the pay of public servants – overpaid and underworked or selfless heroes who could be earning more in the private sector? We can’t settle that debate here, but, using data from Government at a Glance 2013, we can at least give you some sense of how public sector pay compares across some OECD countries.
The most basic approach is simply to look at annual compensation in USD – in other words, salaries paid in local currencies converted into US dollars and then adjusted for purchasing power parity, a statistical technique used to compare the cost of living in different countries. Read more...