4 ms·

The problem is the FBI uses mostly the same GS pay scale as the rest of the federal government. So if the pay stinks for them, it also stinks for every other go

The problem is the FBI uses mostly the same GS pay scale as the rest of the federal government. So if the pay stinks for them, it also stinks for every other government agency. And that’s a much bigger problem then Mulder and Scully not making rent.

beanjuiceII 3y ago
Yes the gs pay scale also means these agencies use more contract workers who end up costing way way more. It's a dual world that exists
- sneak 3y ago
  You’re telling me that an organization that has zero incentive to be efficient with money is being penny wise and pound foolish? This is the same problem with violent and criminal cops - the lawsuits against the department are paid by taxpayers, not the offenders. The people who make these bad decisions aren’t wasting their own money - they’re wasting the money taken from you and I by force. They have no incentive to stop wasting it.
  - cyanydeez 3y ago
    That's not what's happening guy. The people setting the pay scale are bought out by corporations who want that money spent on themselves. This isn't some avocado toast incident, not matter how much such a simple budget you understand
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    > You’re telling me that an organization that has zero incentive to be efficient with money is being penny wise and pound foolish? All of these pay limits are capped by Senator's pay of $180k ish. No Senator (or House Member) is going to vote for typical FBI agents to have higher salaries than themselves. What we're seeing here is the American people refusing to give pay-raises to our executive class / leadership class, and then the natural degradation of our leaders and pay-scales all the way down the chain. We're well past due of giving Senators / House members a proper pay raise. Maybe then we'll actually have smart people running for these important positions again. > The people who make these bad decisions aren’t wasting their own money - they’re wasting the money taken from you and I by force. They have no incentive to stop wasting it. No Congressman or Senator will think that FBI pay raises would be fair, when they themselves aren't allowed a pay aise to a sufficient level. Top end executive level FBI (ex: FBI Head) will be close to Congressional pay or maybe just a little above that. Then, the rest of the GS scale builds down from there. By the time we get to starting salaries, its insufficient.
    - sneak 3y ago
      I don’t think this argument holds water. US lawmakers make millions of dollars beyond their salaries; the salary for the position is basically irrelevant. You could eliminate the salary and no fewer people would try for the job. Conversely, you could 10x the salary and no more people would try for the job. The paycheck simply isn’t a significant factor in whether or not someone wants to be a senator or representative.
      - dragontamer 3y ago
        > US lawmakers make millions of dollars beyond their salaries 1. For those where this is true, this is a MAJOR problem. 2. For those where this is false, this means that we're underpaying lawmakers severely. > The paycheck simply isn’t a significant factor in whether or not someone wants to be a senator or representative. Should it? I think the primary pay of Senators / Representatives should be their paycheck. Not dark money pools from who knows where. You're basically accepting blatant corruption as if its inevitable. Erm... no. Lets raise salaries so that Congressmen can take up two houses across the country (one at home for their families, and a 2nd home in the Wash. DC area so they can do their job). And then increase the wages high enough so that "normal people" apply for the position. Its not like the uber-rich, the independently wealthy, or the paid off bribed people are who we want as Congressmen or Senators. We actually want normies. ------- Once Senators / Congressmen are at like $300k, which is high but reasonable IMO given the overall budget of the country, then we can work on the GS scale and Executive scale as appropriate. The FBI Director making only $180k can be raised to $300k, and then the layman FBI agent can rise above $70k. The GS Payscale is a fine idea but only when the top-of-the-ladder truly represents the top. And not "top for government employee" but "top for the country", so that we're actually offering competitive wages and attracting solid talent in all areas of government.
        nurple 3y ago
        Or we could just abolish representative government that was created to work around limitations in the predominant communication tech at the time, horseback. The corruption does feel inevitable here as we sit and watch the federal gov rob the country blind while shamelessly enriching their families. No, I wouldn't take a rep's job for even $500k/year, and neither will anyone with the moral mettle to make changes, exactly because they can see the impossibility. More money is not a solution to greed and self-dealing.
  - nunez 3y ago
    From what I've seen, this dichotomy is not too dissimilar from how private corporations will skimp on employee pay (SG&A/OpEx) while firing the money gun at consulting/contracting companies (CapEx) or doling out impressive offers for new hires on strategic projects. Different buckets of (tax-payer) money.
- polski-g 3y ago
  Not really. The problem is that pay is just capped. There's just a shortage of highly competent people across the entire planet and the only carrot you can offer is money. The federal government is banned from paying them market rate but not banned from subcontracting out the entire task. NIST is trying to start up an AI wing with "accelerated" pay scales to attract talent. But even if they come in at the maximum allowable salary (~$317k), it's still about 600k short of being able to woo employees from OpenAI.
rayiner 3y ago
$73,000 starting salary is perfectly fine in the DC metro area. The problem is that the GS scale’s locality pay bumps haven’t kept pace with some truly insane areas.
mooreds 3y ago
I ran into this when applying for the US Digital Service. Their pay scales simply weren't competitive with the private sector (and I don't even live in SV).
- tomrod 3y ago
  USDS gives you an enormous network into tech/govtech though. As an intangible benefit it can be worth a stint if that is the direction you want to take your career.
  - nunez 3y ago
    It, supposedly, also gives you the experience and connections to start your own SBA-style consulting business. Contracting for the government requires knowing the right people to meet and the right paperwork to submit. It can be a very lucrative gambit if successful.
koolba 3y ago
> And that’s a much bigger problem then Mulder and Scully not making rent. It’s only a problem if you want the government to be spending even more money. They already spend approximately 1/3 of the GDP and that’s plenty big enough for many. If they want to pay people more, change the denominator.
- achates 3y ago
  Plus they have ironclad job security and a pension (which practically no taxpayers get), so it's not directly comparable to private sector salaries.
- metamet 3y ago
  I believe their point was that FBI agents struggling to cover housing are more susceptible to external payments.
  - koolba 3y ago
    That’s true for all government employees and elected officials. For Congress specifically, I’m in favor of raising salaries to $1M/year while simultaneously taking a zero tolerance policy on all lobbyist funded excursions. That’ll attract plenty of honest folks as the base salary would be more than enough.
    - master_crab 3y ago
      I’m not opposed to this. but a more reliable solution might be extending terms to 6-8 years and then making second terms illegal. People would still love to hire someone with experience in the highest rungs of government and it would decrease the negative influence of lobbyists on currently serving members.
    - impossiblefork 3y ago
      Yes, but the FBI contains part of the US government's attempts to counter spies and infiltrators, and my understanding is that it's seen as especially important that those people aren't easily bribable.
cyanydeez 3y ago
As we see with the GOP, if there's not enough money to do a job, they'll get bought out by the highest bidder. So it's a bit bigger of a problem when you're talking about government jobs with large security concerns.
NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
Yeah. For 2024, a newly promoted Supervisory Special Agent (which, as the name suggests, is a supervisory position requiring years of experience as a Special Agent) in NYC makes about $150K including locality adjustment. That's probably ballpark for base salary for a new-promote (3 YoE) associate at a Wall St bank.

beanjuiceII 3y ago

Yes the gs pay scale also means these agencies use more contract workers who end up costing way way more. It's a dual world that exists

sneak 3y ago
You’re telling me that an organization that has zero incentive to be efficient with money is being penny wise and pound foolish? This is the same problem with violent and criminal cops - the lawsuits against the department are paid by taxpayers, not the offenders. The people who make these bad decisions aren’t wasting their own money - they’re wasting the money taken from you and I by force. They have no incentive to stop wasting it.
- cyanydeez 3y ago
  That's not what's happening guy. The people setting the pay scale are bought out by corporations who want that money spent on themselves. This isn't some avocado toast incident, not matter how much such a simple budget you understand
- dragontamer 3y ago
  > You’re telling me that an organization that has zero incentive to be efficient with money is being penny wise and pound foolish? All of these pay limits are capped by Senator's pay of $180k ish. No Senator (or House Member) is going to vote for typical FBI agents to have higher salaries than themselves. What we're seeing here is the American people refusing to give pay-raises to our executive class / leadership class, and then the natural degradation of our leaders and pay-scales all the way down the chain. We're well past due of giving Senators / House members a proper pay raise. Maybe then we'll actually have smart people running for these important positions again. > The people who make these bad decisions aren’t wasting their own money - they’re wasting the money taken from you and I by force. They have no incentive to stop wasting it. No Congressman or Senator will think that FBI pay raises would be fair, when they themselves aren't allowed a pay aise to a sufficient level. Top end executive level FBI (ex: FBI Head) will be close to Congressional pay or maybe just a little above that. Then, the rest of the GS scale builds down from there. By the time we get to starting salaries, its insufficient.
  - sneak 3y ago
    I don’t think this argument holds water. US lawmakers make millions of dollars beyond their salaries; the salary for the position is basically irrelevant. You could eliminate the salary and no fewer people would try for the job. Conversely, you could 10x the salary and no more people would try for the job. The paycheck simply isn’t a significant factor in whether or not someone wants to be a senator or representative.
    - dragontamer 3y ago
      > US lawmakers make millions of dollars beyond their salaries 1. For those where this is true, this is a MAJOR problem. 2. For those where this is false, this means that we're underpaying lawmakers severely. > The paycheck simply isn’t a significant factor in whether or not someone wants to be a senator or representative. Should it? I think the primary pay of Senators / Representatives should be their paycheck. Not dark money pools from who knows where. You're basically accepting blatant corruption as if its inevitable. Erm... no. Lets raise salaries so that Congressmen can take up two houses across the country (one at home for their families, and a 2nd home in the Wash. DC area so they can do their job). And then increase the wages high enough so that "normal people" apply for the position. Its not like the uber-rich, the independently wealthy, or the paid off bribed people are who we want as Congressmen or Senators. We actually want normies. ------- Once Senators / Congressmen are at like $300k, which is high but reasonable IMO given the overall budget of the country, then we can work on the GS scale and Executive scale as appropriate. The FBI Director making only $180k can be raised to $300k, and then the layman FBI agent can rise above $70k. The GS Payscale is a fine idea but only when the top-of-the-ladder truly represents the top. And not "top for government employee" but "top for the country", so that we're actually offering competitive wages and attracting solid talent in all areas of government.
      - nurple 3y ago
        Or we could just abolish representative government that was created to work around limitations in the predominant communication tech at the time, horseback. The corruption does feel inevitable here as we sit and watch the federal gov rob the country blind while shamelessly enriching their families. No, I wouldn't take a rep's job for even $500k/year, and neither will anyone with the moral mettle to make changes, exactly because they can see the impossibility. More money is not a solution to greed and self-dealing.
- nunez 3y ago
  From what I've seen, this dichotomy is not too dissimilar from how private corporations will skimp on employee pay (SG&A/OpEx) while firing the money gun at consulting/contracting companies (CapEx) or doling out impressive offers for new hires on strategic projects. Different buckets of (tax-payer) money.
polski-g 3y ago
Not really. The problem is that pay is just capped. There's just a shortage of highly competent people across the entire planet and the only carrot you can offer is money. The federal government is banned from paying them market rate but not banned from subcontracting out the entire task. NIST is trying to start up an AI wing with "accelerated" pay scales to attract talent. But even if they come in at the maximum allowable salary (~$317k), it's still about 600k short of being able to woo employees from OpenAI.

rayiner 3y ago

$73,000 starting salary is perfectly fine in the DC metro area. The problem is that the GS scale’s locality pay bumps haven’t kept pace with some truly insane areas.

mooreds 3y ago

I ran into this when applying for the US Digital Service. Their pay scales simply weren't competitive with the private sector (and I don't even live in SV).

tomrod 3y ago
USDS gives you an enormous network into tech/govtech though. As an intangible benefit it can be worth a stint if that is the direction you want to take your career.
- nunez 3y ago
  It, supposedly, also gives you the experience and connections to start your own SBA-style consulting business. Contracting for the government requires knowing the right people to meet and the right paperwork to submit. It can be a very lucrative gambit if successful.

koolba 3y ago

> And that’s a much bigger problem then Mulder and Scully not making rent. It’s only a problem if you want the government to be spending even more money. They already spend approximately 1/3 of the GDP and that’s plenty big enough for many. If they want to pay people more, change the denominator.

achates 3y ago
Plus they have ironclad job security and a pension (which practically no taxpayers get), so it's not directly comparable to private sector salaries.
metamet 3y ago
I believe their point was that FBI agents struggling to cover housing are more susceptible to external payments.
- koolba 3y ago
  That’s true for all government employees and elected officials. For Congress specifically, I’m in favor of raising salaries to $1M/year while simultaneously taking a zero tolerance policy on all lobbyist funded excursions. That’ll attract plenty of honest folks as the base salary would be more than enough.
  - master_crab 3y ago
    I’m not opposed to this. but a more reliable solution might be extending terms to 6-8 years and then making second terms illegal. People would still love to hire someone with experience in the highest rungs of government and it would decrease the negative influence of lobbyists on currently serving members.
  - impossiblefork 3y ago
    Yes, but the FBI contains part of the US government's attempts to counter spies and infiltrators, and my understanding is that it's seen as especially important that those people aren't easily bribable.

cyanydeez 3y ago

As we see with the GOP, if there's not enough money to do a job, they'll get bought out by the highest bidder. So it's a bit bigger of a problem when you're talking about government jobs with large security concerns.

NovemberWhiskey 3y ago

Yeah. For 2024, a newly promoted Supervisory Special Agent (which, as the name suggests, is a supervisory position requiring years of experience as a Special Agent) in NYC makes about $150K including locality adjustment. That's probably ballpark for base salary for a new-promote (3 YoE) associate at a Wall St bank.