Political pressure on federal pay levels is mounting at a time when many Americans are unemployed or underemployed.

The newly elected Massachusetts Republican senator, Scott Brown, called for a freeze on federal salaries. And Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, last week asked nine federal agencies for data on their employees earning more than $100,000.

"This disparity between public- and private-sector compensation for comparable work leads us to question the basis for these salaries and raises," Barton said.

And last week, two economists in Forbes magazine called on the government to slash employees' salaries to reduce the deficit.

A new USA Today study is likely to add fuel to the fire. Its analysis shows that federal employees earn higher average salaries than private-sector workers in more than eight of 10 occupations. Feds on average earn about $7,000 more than their private-sector counterparts, it found.

USA Today's analysis, based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, examines only nationwide salary averages and does not break salaries out by region. Many federal employees live in high cost-of-living areas such as Washington, New York City and San Francisco, which could be driving up their salaries. And it does not specifically compare salaries for the government's top managers and executives, who often earn far less than executives in the private sector.

"Everything we've done at the [Senior Executive Service] level shows they are underpaid," said Carol Bonosaro, president of the Senior Executives Association.

Bonosaro said the federal government sometimes needs to offer salaries that are better than the private sector to bring in much-needed workers, such as nurses at the Veterans Affairs Department.

And she feels that politicians railing against federal salaries want to have it both ways, and would be the first to complain if federal agencies stopped being able to effectively accomplish their missions.

"Sometimes, you can't win for losing as a fed," Bonosaro said. "On the one hand, it's ‘don't pay so much.' But gosh darnit, we expect good service."

Bonosaro fears that with the political climate turning solidly against the government and federal employees, Congress might cut their proposed 2.0 percent pay raise entirely out of the fiscal 2011 budget.

"This is called turning people against one another," Bonosaro said.

Overall, federal workers earned an average salary of $67,691 in 2008 for occupations that exist both in government and the private sector, USA Today found. The average pay for the same mix of jobs in the private sector was $60,046 in 2008, the most recent data available.

These salary figures do not include the value of health, pension and other benefits, which averaged $40,785 per federal employee in 2008 versus $9,882 per private worker, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The federal government spends about $125 billion annually on compensation for about 2 million civilian employees.

"The data flip the conventional wisdom on its head," said Cato Institute budget analyst Chris Edwards, a critic of federal pay policy. "Federal workers make substantially more than private workers, not less, in addition to having a large advantage in benefits."

But National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley says the comparison is faulty because it "compares apples and oranges."

Federal accountants, for example, perform work that has more complexity and requires more skill than accounting work in the private sector, she says.

"When you look at the actual duties, you see that very few federal jobs align with those in the private sector," she said. Federal employees are paid an average of 26 percent less than nonfederal workers doing comparable work, Kelley said.

Office of Personnel Management spokeswoman Sedelta Verble said higher pay also reflects the longevity and older age of federal workers.

USA Today used Bureau of Labor Statistics data to compare salaries in every federal job that had a private-sector equivalent. For example, the federal government's 57,000 registered nurses — working for the Veterans Administration and elsewhere — were paid an average of $74,460 a year, $10,680 more than the average for private-sector nurses.

BLS reports that 216 occupations covering 1.1 million federal workers exist in both the federal government and the private sector. An additional 124 federal occupations covering 750,000 employees — air-traffic controllers, tax collectors and others — did not have direct equivalents, according to BLS.

In all, the USA Today analysis found, 180 jobs paid better average salaries in the federal government; 36 paid better in the private sector.

The private sector paid more on average in a select group of high-skill occupations, including lawyers, veterinarians and airline pilots. The government's 5,200 computer research scientists made an average of $95,190, about $10,000 less than the average in the corporate world.

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Dennis Cauchon of USA Today contributed to this story.