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Government Salaries Soar Under Obama
Here's where the real pay dirt is. In the last five years, the number of federal employees making $150,000 or more per year increased tenfold, according to an investigation by USA Today. Those high wages increased by twofold under the Obama administration. "The biggest pay hikes have gone to employees who have been with the government for 15 to 24 years," the paper reports. "Since 2005, average salaries for this group climbed 25% compared with a 9% inflation rate." ...

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Psst! Rand Paul Was Right About Federal Pay
...Federal pay does average more than $120,000 (including about $40,000 in benefits). The debate is simply over whether the private sector pays as much. Media Matters clears it up again! Where would we be without them? ...

P.S.: When people are outraged at the $120,000 figure, I think, they aren't making an implicit apples-to-oranges comparison. They're making an apples-to-themselves comparison. They know what they do and what they're making. They have a pretty good, rough idea of what federal employees do (some are highly skilled doctors, some are equal opportunity compliance facilitators). They know that they themselves have had to take pay freezes and cuts and endure waves of corporate downsizing while the federal government hasn't been through anything like that. In fact, pay for individual federal workers has kept growing each year thanks to both cost-of-living raises and "step" increases. The federal pay escalator kept on running right through the recesssion. Meanwhile, federal workers enjoy job security they can only dream of.

They know, in short, that as a result of this Great Divergence (sorry Tim!) they don't make anything like $120,000, but they pay taxes to support the government workers who do—and they're outraged. ...