Once upon a time, if you worked for government - what's known as a public service job - you understood that your pay and benefits would lag behind your counterparts working for American businesses, but you also had advantages. You served your community, state or nation. Your job security was higher. Depending upon your particular job, the demands vs. your private sector mirror image might have been a little less.

That's almost certainly not the case any more. While there's a preponderance of data on the Internet, led of course by trumpets of outrage from the far left and far right, key data shows a very different picture.

Despite claims from the right that federal employees were being paid twice what their counterparts in the public sector earned, and equally outraged claims from the left - led by public-sector unions - that federal workers were getting the fiscal shaft, a nonpartisan study in 2012 by the Congressional Budget Office gave both sides partial victories. The report, supported by analysis from FactCheck.org, showed that when benefits were taken into consideration, federal workers earned 16 percent more than folks doing similar jobs in the public workplace. However, the study also showed that private sector employees with graduate degrees and professional credentials earned slightly more than their fed counterparts.

For state and local governments, an organization called Key Policy Data (keypolicydata.com), led by public policy economists, determined in 2013 that public employees received 13 percent more than did their private sector counterparts. The average compensation - pay and benefits - for state and local public workers was $67,664 vs. $60,043 for a similar job in the business sector.

So what's this got to do with pay stubs and dental bills in the Coeur d'Alene area? You may have noticed news stories announcing public sector raises from 1 to as much as 12 percent. You may also have noticed that in almost every case, the public bodies - actually, you, the taxpayers - are absorbing increased benefits costs. For instance, Kootenai County is ensuring its employees won't have to fork over the $900 or so additional health insurance dollars in the coming year that the county must pay for every full-time worker.

The gist of all this good news for public employees is, in our view, twofold. First, taxpayers in many cases are financing greater increases than they themselves are receiving. Apparently that's OK, because very few taxpayers have complained about the raises teachers, street maintenance workers, sheriff's deputies and many others are receiving.

The other point is that private sector employers should be paying close attention. If they're worried about losing good employees to other private sector businesses, they're not worried enough. For many talented employees, those government jobs are looking better all the time.

Business creates products that supply the world and fuel the economy. Government consumes and regulates products, and serves the people in many different ways. Both sides of the equation are necessary, and both need good employees. But something's out of balance when regulators are better rewarded than producers. Until the general populace objects, that imbalance is likely to grow.