People make a lot out of this 100k number. It sounds like a lot of money to most reasonable people, and its thrown around a lot in rants against the government and government employees.
MOST federal employees live in the DC Metro area. The cost of living there is much higher than what is normal elsewhere in the country, as are many major metro areas in the nation. Columbus Ohio pays better than Mansfield Ohio, but Columbus is nothing on an area like LA or Chicago. My point is, cost of living is never factored into these numbers. Articles will rant about government employees making over 100k in retirement, but those emploees worked their entire careers in major metro areas like LA or Chicago and then retire and move somewhere with a normal cost of living.
Easy solution - move the employees out of DC and into America. New York and the west coast are other areas that have high locality adjustments.
The ONLY reason the cost of living in the DC Metro area is as high as it is...is because of highly paid Federal employees.
NicoDon wrote: “People make a lot out of this 100k number. It sounds like a lot of money to most reasonable people, and its thrown around a lot in rants against the government and government employees.”
Also of importance. The federal workforce isn’t comparable to the national workforce. The federal government has a much higher percentage of college educated employees. It doesn’t hire a lot of service industry people. It is much more STEM oriented.
But it brings up the question why are most of these employees in DC? Almost none actually help the people the agency is supposed to help. Only a small amount are need in DC to administer. The rest should be moved out around the country.