[Happy Monkey]

The calculation would be very different if apples were compared with apples, as Kelley pointed out in your quote. For one thing, the private sector includes the full spectrum of the economy, while government is primarily white collar, especially after outsourcing. When a big company outsources its janitorial staff, those employees are still in the private sector calculation. When a government entity does the same, those employees move from government to private sector, which increases the government salary average and decreases the private sector average.