The post you are reporting:
The reason public pay is being held back I'd because private pay, especially when taking into account pension provision, has fallen so far behind.
Most public employees do bloody well out of the system, I certainly have for one compared to my immediate peers.
Here's a few FACTS.
Dan Hyde By Dan Hyde, Consumer Affairs Editor12:01AM BST 10 Oct 2014 CommentsComment
The true scale of the gulf in pay that separates private and public sector workers is revealed today in an report that includes the impact of "gold-plated" pensions for the first time.
Workers in the state sector received a fifth more than counterparts at private firms when pensions were factored in, according research published by the Institute of Fiscal Studies.
The think tank said teachers, doctors, nurses and other state employees received an average of £28,000 a year, while private workers received £27,000.
However, generous pensions added £6,000 to public workers' pay, boosting the total to £34,000 a year.
By contrast, the pensions offered to private workers added just £2,000 a year, giving £29,000 overall, the report found.
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The £5,000 gap was worth almost a fifth of the salary of someone in the private sector.
Experts said the figures indicated state staff were "on an incredibly good deal" because the vast majority still had generous final salary pensions.
Malcolm McLean of pension consultants Barnett Waddingham said: "Public sector pensions are streets ahead of those in the private because they have such valuable pensions, and the gap is growing."
The IFS said just 12 per cent of private sector workers had a final salary pension today, down from 38 per cent in 1997.
By contrast, almost all employees in the public sector had a pension worth a percentage of their salary, rather than the growth of money invested in stock market.
The study took into account age, region and education to create a fair comparison between similar workers in the state and private sectors.
Jonathan Cribb, author of the report said: "There is substantial variation in the estimated differential between public and private sector pay for different types of workers and across different parts of the country. This might suggest differentiating pay awards going forward.
"The uncomfortable truth is that it is lower paid workers, women and those in poorer regions who do best in the public sector, relative to the private sector."
Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, has promised public pensions would remain untouched "for 25 years".
The statement, made in 2011, was made to appease public workers threatening to strike over proposals to increase the age at which they qualified for a pension from 60 to 65 and water down inflation-linked payout rises in retirement.
The IFS took these reforms into consideration and said there would still be a 17 per cent gap between the total pay and pensions given to staff in the two sectors this year.
The gap was largest for women, where state staff earned 21 per cent more each hour on average. Men, by contrast, earned 10.5 per cent more in the public sector when pensions were included.
Younger and older workers were also relatively better off, the IFS found, while for those in middle aged the benefits were less pronounced.
John O'Connell, director of the Taxpayers Alliance, said: "It is unfair to expect the majority of taxpayers, many of whom have seen the value of their pensions fall in recent years, to subsidise generous retirement deals that they themselves cannot afford."
Mr McLean said: "We mustn't drag public pensions down to the lowest common denominator but raise the standards of pensions in the private sector, boosting workers' retirement prospects."