Federal employees making twice as much as their private sector counterparts, right?

That’s what Senator-elect Scott Brown said during his interview Sunday with Barbara Walters on ABC News’ This Week:

Photo: ABC News

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WALTERS: President Obama has asked for a spending freeze on almost everything except matters like the military, Social Security, and Medicare. He says he’s going line by line through the budget. Now, you have said that’s not enough for you; that you want to cut spending and not just freeze it.

So what are the first 3 items that you would cut?

BROWN: The problem with what the president said is he’s not doing it until 2011. We need to do it immediately. We need to put a freeze on federal hires and federal raises because, as you know, federal employees are making twice as much as their private counterparts.

We all remember the USAToday story from December (from which Brown likely got his stats): For feds, more get 6-figure salaries: Average pay $30,000 over private sector.

Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months — and that’s before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.

Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time — in pay and hiring — during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector…

The trend to six-figure salaries is occurring throughout the federal government, in agencies big and small, high-tech and low-tech. The primary cause: substantial pay raises and new salary rules.

I don’t highlight this as a ‘got ya,’ but this is the perception that feds run up against — they’re overpaid and people believe they can’t get the job done.

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