These federal employees are making more money than the president

Topline: President Donald Trump made it a priority to downsize the federal workforce last year, but the top-paid employees are making more money than previously.

There were 1,540 federal workers who outearned the president’s salary of $400,000 last year, breaking the previous record of 956 workers. The employees collectively earned $632.3 million.

An additional 189 employees made exactly $400,000.

Key facts: The eight highest-paid federal employees all work for the National Institutes of Health. Gary Gibbons, director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, made $547,285. It was the highest federal salary in history, breaking his own record from 2024.

But almost all of the employees that outearned the president are physicians with the Veterans Health Administration, including four dentists.

VHA doctors are technically not allowed to earn more than $400,000 in salary, but bonuses for recruitment, retention, relocation and more can push that amount higher. The federal payroll records Open the Books received from the Office of Personnel Management do not specify how much of employees’ earnings were from bonuses.

The Dole Act, passed with bipartisan support and signed by President Joe Biden shortly before he left office, could push the salaries even higher. The law allows 300 doctors to exceed the earnings limit and gives others retroactive pay for earnings that would have exceeded the limit in past years. The VHA has yet to implement it.

California had 289 federal employees that outearned the president — more than anywhere else — but there was at least one in every state except Wyoming and North Dakota. Only 31 of them are located in Washington D.C.

Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Background: Outearning the president was once almost unheard of. In 2019, Gibbons and former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci became two of the first federal employees to ever make more than $400,000.

However, the president has not received a pay raise since 2001, while inflation and budget increases have pushed other wages ever higher. Trump donates his presidential salary.

Summary: It makes sense for doctors to be among the highest-paid federal employees, but the fast rate of salary growth could be a concern for taxpayers if left unchecked.

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