Something Fishy in the Ministry of Defense

Ted Bromund / January 08, 2010

American commentators, like Michael Barone, are starting to focus on the fact that, while the recession has hurt the private sector, it’s helping the public one. A Rasmussen poll found that 46 percent of government employees say the economy is getting better while just 31 percent say it’s getting worse. In the private sector, those proportions are reversed. While the private sector economy has lost millions of jobs, the public sector one has been stable.

But anything the U.S. can do, Britain, in this context, can do worse. The Sunday Times notes that in 2009, 21.1% of all U.K. labor was employed by the state, and that – measured by hours on the job, rate of wage inflation, or salary – it is almost always better to be paid by the government than by a private employer. Even in the highest paid job, the private sector pays better salaries, but the government offers a much larger pension. Britain has hired over 300,000 new civil servants since September 2007. (more…)