Despite the president’s dire predictions leading up to the sequester, including the 4-Pinocchio-grade whopper that the Capitol janitorial staff would suffer a pay cut, some job holders have been spared the gloom and doom. In fact for one industry things are looking up. That is the select fraternity of top political appointees in the Obama White House whose average annual income — $142,691 — is more than triple what the average American wage earner earns.
Paul Bedard of the Examiner reports:
Deep inside a new Government Accountability Office audit of the 321 presidential appointees working for the government are details showing that the 94 who Obama works closest with earn a range of $120,000 to $172,000, a top paycheck that is more than double the median income in Washington, the nation’s highest income region.
A majority of the remaining presidential appointees, said the GAO, work in agencies and on commissions where they earn up to $634 a day. For example, the presidential appointee on the “International Water and Boundary Commission” earns $165,300, and the seven appointees on the Arctic Research Commission make $596 a day. There are 74 who earn nothing.
Bedard notes that the GAO found some exceptions. The director of the National Cancer Institute, a presidential appointment, earns $350,000 and the director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture pulls down $179,700.
While some federal workers will likely be impacted by the sequester, which will force them to take one unpaid day off per month, for other operations within the federal government it will be business — and salary — as usual. And when you consider that the federal budget has grown from $1.9 trillion in 2001 to $3.5 trillion in 2012, that’s a lot of “as usual” to account for.
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