If you're a Fed you come out ahead

In yet another promotion of government transparency, yesterday the Obama administration posted a detailed list of who makes what at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In fact, even the Bush administration was transparent, at least when it came to salaries. After all, every administration since 1995 has been required to "deliver a report to Congress listing the title and salary of every White House Office employee."

So let's try to use the transparency message sparingly. It loses its zest when it's attached to a congressional mandate.

But I digress...

When it comes to pay, working at the White House does not look so bad.The highest earners take home $172,200, while at the low end, staff assistants get $36,000.  However, few in the White House work a wimpy 40-hours per week.  For a typical staffer at the White House multiply that by number by two and add another 20.

So how do feds stack up?

The salaries of federal employees are not secret; all one needs to do is go to the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) 2009 Salary Tables web page. The base salary including locality pay for those in the area of Washington-Baltimore-Northern Virginia, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA ranges from the lowly GS-1 Step 1 of $21,592 to a GS-15 step 10 of $153,200. Members of the Senior Executive Service top out at $177,000 (see the attached pay tables).

But in the National Capital Region, there really are virtually no GS-1's.  Realistically, jobs start at the GS-5 level which range from $33,269-$43,251 and the average federal employee gets paid $75,419.

Compare this to the White House where 60 percent of the White House staff make less than the average DC area federal employee and only 31 percent of the staff make over $100K.  Note: only Obama's top aides, such as Senior Advisers David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, press secretary Robert Gibbs, and Jon "Favs" Favreau, Obama's head speechwriter, are in the $172,200 Club (see the entire list here).

If you are looking for noted celebrity "Kumar" (Kal Penn), I guess the White House is not that transparent...he's not on the list.

So who is the big winner? The dedicated federal employee or the burnt out white house staffer?  From a position of prestige and real or perceived power, perhaps the White House staff. But in the final analysis, feds have the edge on pay and win outright on hours worked.

White House staff also lose out in salary advancement. In one of his first acts as president, Obama announced that he was freezing the salaries of employees who made more than $100,000 a year, saying, "Families are tightening their belts, and so should Washington."

Also Interesting:

• Federal vs state worker wages: who's making out better?
• DC federal raises on par with private sector?
• The top paying federal government jobs
• Federal judges seeking higher pay