If you’re struggling to make ends meet in this economy, you aren’t alone. But government employees aren’t with you. The average federal government employee takes home far more in salary and benefits than productive Americans, their pay has risen throughout the recession, and is set to continue to rise.

And, during the recession the number of federal employees making over $100,000 per year has literally exploded. Even while the rest of us have to make do with less, it’s boom time for the federal government as more and more of your hard-earned money gets taken from you and shoveled into these bureaucrats’ luxurious compensation packages.

A USA TODAY analysis of Office of Personnel Management data found that the average federal worker’s salary had risen to $71,000, while private sector workers averaged $40,000.

Corroborating this data is an August analysis from the Cato Institute which also figured in benefits. Those numbers, based on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, also a federal government agency, showed the value of federal government salary and benefits packages averaged double the private sector, at $120,000 vs. $60,000 in 2008.

Even more shockingly, federal government compensation is growing at a much faster pace than the private sector, Cato found.

The Cato analysis had been criticized at the time, but USA TODAY’s analysis using a different data set appears to confirm it.

“The federal government has become extremely bloated and top heavy,” writes Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at Cato who conducted the institute’s analysis. “With 383,000 workers earning six-figure salaries, the government has become an elite island of overcompensated administrators immune from the competitive job realities of average families.”

A Rasmussen poll released last week showed that 59 percent of Americans believe government employees are paid more than the average American, 51 percent believe government employees are paid too much, and 71 percent believe private sector employees work harder than government employees.

A government bureaucrat told USA TODAY that federal employee salaries were higher on average because the government hires more highly skilled workers, and that for comparable jobs, federal pay is 26% lower than the private sector. No data were immediately available to confirm this.

And then there’s government employees spending their time goofing off. “Bureau of Labor Statistics data indeed shows that government workers work fewer hours in a year and have much higher job security than private sector workers,” Edwards wrote.

“The Bush administration let federal pay and benefits grow completely out of control, as it did with other areas of federal spending,” Edwards continued. “President Obama . . . should call for a multi-year freeze on federal pay, work to overhaul a system that moves workers up the pay scales too rapidly, and begin purging the upper ranks of federal management.”

We should all appreciate what government bureaucrats do for us — or do to us. Without them, we might actually have to live like free people and take responsibility for our own lives.

["Capitol Hill" photo by Will Palmer; CC BY 2.0]