As Chris Edwards has shown, federal government bureaucrats are grossly overpaid. The same is true for government workers in Alabama. A report published by the Alabama Policy Institute finds that public sector workers gets 21 percent more compensation per hour than workers in the productive sector of the economy. But even this analysis understates the problem since many bureaucrats are involved in activities that are not legitimate functions of government:

This report evaluates information available on Alabama state employee compensation, making comparisons to other states and to the private sector. Generally, the conclusion is that Alabama state employee pay is higher than in comparable states. More importantly, it is concluded that state employee compensation (that is, wages and employer-paid benefits) in Alabama is substantially higher than for equivalent employees in the private sector in the state. …an analysis of comparable state and private employees (equal education, equal skill), this discrepancy in pay is principally the result of the fact that the state, unlike the private sector, does not establish employee compensation using reliable market mechanisms. …State government employer-paid benefits are considerably higher than in the private sector. State government employee-benefit costs are estimated at 28.5 percent compared to wages and salaries. Private employee-benefit costs are estimated at 21.9 percent of wages and salaries. Thus, the employer-paid benefit factor for state employees is nearly one third higher than that of private employees. …State employees receive more paid time off than private employees in Alabama. On average, full-time state employees spend 10 percent fewer hours on the job for their compensation than private employees. State employees use more than twice as many annual sick days as private employees (10.2 compared to 4.4). It is estimated that state employees spend 1,726 hours per year at work. Private employees spend an average of 1,915 hours on the job. It is estimated that Alabama private employees are at work, on average, more than a month more each year than state employees (189 hours). Each month, the average state employee is paid for not working approximately two days that private employees would work. As a result, the average private employee is compensated $21.41 per hour worked. The average state employee is compensated $25.88 per hour worked, 21 percent more than the average private sector employee.